When RaDonda Vaught began receiving speaking requests after her 2022 conviction in Nashville, the former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse said she was not looking for a new career. NPR reports that more than a year after a jury read its guilty verdict for negligent homicide and neglect of an impaired adult, Vaught started giving talks around the country about what happened during a 2017 medication error that resulted in a patient death.
Vaught was sentenced to three years of probation for administering the wrong medication and was also stripped of her nursing license, NPR said. In the years that followed, she shifted away from nursing work and, NPR reports, settled on a small sheep farm in Bethpage, Tennessee, selling eggs at farmers markets and supplying meat to local butchers and restaurants.
According to NPR, the speaking engagements provided income that replaces what she earned as a nurse. NPR reports that in the previous year she told her story more than 20 times and was paid about $5,000 to $10,000 per event, while also expressing awareness of the optics around being paid for lessons drawn from a fatal event.
In her talks, Vaught said she hopes audiences in healthcare—especially as hospitals increasingly rely on automation and artificial intelligence—will understand the “multiple factors” that contributed to the medication mix-up, NPR reported. She said she is “painfully aware” the speaking requests could be seen as profiting from a tragedy, and she told NPR that she did not expect the opportunities to continue for long.
NPR reports that Vaught’s message includes a focus on how systems can be built so that human mistakes do not automatically translate into deaths. At a presentation to the California Hospital Association, NPR said, she argued that preventing people from openly discussing mistakes “doesn’t save people” and instead “kills them,” using her platform to press for staff and process changes.
The underlying case centers on Vaught’s account of the medication retrieval and override steps on the day of the incident, NPR said. NPR reports that in court testimony and records, a doctor ordered a sedative called Versed for a patient’s claustrophobia before an imaging procedure, and Vaught typed “VE” into an electronic system to retrieve Versed; when it did not dispense, she overrode the system.
In the trial, NPR reported that other nurses testified they could use overrides during a hospital technology upgrade to bypass delays. When Vaught overrode the system, NPR said, one option available was vecuronium, a powerful paralytic, and she overlooked warnings about the drug, including text on the bottle cap reading “Warning: Paralyzing Agent,” according to court records.
NPR reports that Vaught did not dispute most facts but pleaded not guilty to all charges, saying other factors—such as issues tied to a new electronic health record system—contributed to problems in the hospital. The lead investigator for the prosecution testified in the criminal case that Vanderbilt also shared some responsibility, NPR reported, and the medical center later fired Vaught and negotiated a settlement that keeps the Murphey family from speaking publicly.
Beyond Vaught’s platform, NPR reports that some industry and policy changes have continued to evolve. NPR said that drug-dispensing companies Omnicell and BD have updated their machines using recommendations from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, including changes requiring users to type more than the first two letters of a medication to bring up options. NPR also reported that some hospitals changed drug-administration protocols, including requiring wristband barcode checks wherever medication is given in a hospital.
Vaught’s public speaking has also drawn pushback, NPR said. After she told her story on Nashville public radio station WPLN News in March, NPR reports that retired nurse Gary Wood sent an email to the station arguing that such medical mistakes could never be justified and that it “put a stain on a proud and dedicated profession.”
Even so, NPR reports that Vaught often encounters receptive audiences who view her account as a cautionary lesson. Charlene Verga, who invited Vaught to close a clinical nursing conference for the Massachusetts Nurses Association last year, told NPR that she has seen Vaught upset while telling the story and said Verga viewed Vaught’s presentations as turning a mistake into a teaching moment.
Nursing consultant Matthew Garvey, NPR reported, said he worked with Vaught and that her criminal case inspired him to go to law school. Garvey told NPR he planned to help nurses defend themselves in similar cases and argued that while accountability matters, the defendants’ side of the story is rarely told because lawyers advise against speaking.
Vaught’s talks, NPR said, have become a recurring forum for what healthcare professionals describe as the need to discuss errors openly and redesign systems to reduce the chance that a single misstep leads to catastrophe. In her presentations, NPR said, she confronts details of the incident directly and, at times, struggles emotionally when describing the patient who died.