Nurse convicted in patient's death is now a national speaker on hospital safety

RaDonda Vaught received speaking requests a year after a Nashville courtroom guilty verdict for negligent homicide and neglect of an impaired adult. She was sentenced to three years of probation for administering the wrong medication and accidentally killing a patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2017, and she lost her nursing license. She now farms full time with her husband on a sheep farm in Bethpage, Tennessee, selling eggs and supplying meat locally. After national attention, she began giving speeches across the country about what happened and hopes others in healthcare understand multiple factors behind the medication mix-up, especially as automation and artificial intelligence expand. Her paid engagements replace her lost nursing income but also draw criticism.

"Vaught was sentenced to three years of probation for administering the wrong medication and accidentally killing a patient at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2017. She also lost her nursing license. So Vaught became a full-time farmer. She and her husband live on a small sheep farm in Bethpage, Tennessee, tucked in the rolling hills north of Nashville. They sell eggs at farmers markets on Saturdays and supply meat to local butchers and restaurants."

"The controversial trial had been national news, and now the healthcare industry wanted to hear from her. So Vaught started giving speeches across the country about what happened that day in the hospital. She says her hope is that others in an industry increasingly turning toward automation and artificial intelligence can understand the multiple factors that contributed to the deadly medication mix-up."

"She says she's painfully aware that it could appear she is profiting from a tragedy of her making. "It wasn't something that I wanted to happen. It wasn't even something that was on my radar to think about," Vaught said of the speaking requests. "The opportunities just kept presenting themselves.""

"Last year, she told her story more than 20 times, and she is paid $5,000 to $10,000 per event. But her speaking engagements also provoke criticism. After she told her story at length on Nashville's public radio station, WPLN News, in March, a retired nurse, Gary Wood, fired off an email to the station. Such medical mistakes could never be justified, he wrote: "It put a stain on a p"

Read at www.npr.org