CockyDawg MD

For disregarding numerous safety features of which she is professionallly trained to follow and and for being licensed to practice acute care nursing, I think she must be prosecuted for her negligence leading to death.

If a pilot ignored numerous electronic and audible safety warnings to pull up the nose of the airplane but because they were too incompetent to do so despite being licensed as a pilot and people died as a result of their actions, then the pilot would be criminally liable for the deaths of passengers on his plane.

Basic breakdown of events:

1. The nurse logs into the Pyxis medication system and searches for a proprietary drug named Versed (generic name midazolam) that works as a sedative/anxiolytic. Important: all meds in the Pyxis are listed by generic name to avoid medication errors.
2. The nurse finds no such drug available in the Pyxis, but instead she does find a generic medication named vecuronium (proprietary name Norcuron) that is almost certainly the only medication listed that starts with a “V.”
3. The nurse overrides the Pyxis system THREE times in order to pull the incorrect medication.
4. The nurse opens the Pyxis drawer and takes the incorrect medication. She DOES NOT perform the UNIVERSALLY REQUIRED narcotic medication vial count for that Pyxis drawer. This is a vial count that anyone who regularly retrieves narcotic medications such as Versed, Fentanyl, Dialaudid, ketamine, morphine, Ativan, or oxycodone would absolutely without question know they would perform if they were collecting Versed from the Pyxis.
5. The nurse holds the incorrect medication vial in her hands and draws it into a syringe. The vial she holds in her hand not only is clearly labeled vecuronium and has a large bold red letter message that reads “Warning: paralyzing agent” across the medication label as well as the same “Warning: paralyzing agent” message inscribed around the rubber stopper through which she must pass the needle to draw the med into the syringe.. The metal seal the holds that rubber stopper in place is red, a feature only present on paralyzing agents. Red label coloration on medication vials is universally reserved for paralytics. Lastly, the vecuronium vial is made of clear glass.
The vial that the nurse should have had in her hand would have read midazolam (or Versed) and would be clearly identifiable by its brown UV protective glass and orange label. Orange label coloration on medication vials is universally reserved for sedatives, specifically benzodiazepines.
6. The nurse neglected to perform the standard medication label check before drawing her medication into the syringe.
7. The nurse injected the vecuronium, a rapidly acting paralytic agent, into the patient. Within two to three minutes, the patient lost all diaphragm control while maintaining complete consciousness throughout. In the next 3 to 10 minutes, the patient was asphyxiated leading to anoxic cardiac arrest.
8. The patient died as a direct result of both the nurse’s actions and inactions. The nurse overrode engineered safeguards and universally-accepted standard medication handling protocols directly leading to this patient’s death.

I guarantee you that this is not the first time that this nurse has performed these same overrides and protocol breeches, and it is also very unlikely that it is the first time that she has administered the wrong medication to a patient of hers.

Only she and God know if it this is the first patient she’s killed.

Nope. Just really inconvenient liquor laws. I buy most of my liquor in Georgia for convenience and better selection.

You need to do what you feel is the right decision for you (and your family). I got into medicine after working as an engineer for a few years. It’s definitely something that can be done a with a little age and wisdom, and having the experiences that go with being a 46yo and a prior career as a pharmacist will elevate you above your peers. I am happy with my career, but it’s the Bataan Death March. I would not encourage my family or friends to become a physician. The juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.

I’m saying this so that you know what you’re asking for: if you can imagine doing anything else with your life that will make you happy, then do that. I would encourage you to look strongly at becoming a physicians assistant (and specifically at anesthesiologist assistant with your pharm background). You can get your degree much quicker for MUCH cheaper, practice sooner with little (or no) liability with lots of opportunities to specialize if you so choose, earn excellent pay with better work/life balance, and hospital systems are bending over backwards get you and keep you.

If you absolutely must be the captain of the ship, go all the way and get the MD, but realize what you and those around you are giving up to get there.

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They may be an authority over prescribing meds or diagnosing whatever it is, but that’s the extent

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Uhhhhhhhhhhh ... WTF are you going to see a physician for if not for their authority in these areas???

I guarantee you’re the same dumbass that bitches and moans that you have to wait 6 weeks for an appointment with me.

I know you’re time is valuable to you. My time is valuable too. It’s valuable to me and every patient that needs to see me. When you no-show an appointment for whatever reason, you’re taking away another patient’s opportunity to see me in a timely fashion, because I try to squeeze people in who need to be seen urgently. I don’t charge you a no-show to recoup lost revenue. It’s a negative incentive to keep you from screwing the little old lady waiting 6 weeks to see me. I have to keep the lights on in my office and pay a staff and other shite like that. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.

It’s not even Scottish. It’s all lies.

Each parent of each of these infected kids should be charged with Oregon’s Reckless Endangering Another Person law. Each parent should also be charged with the same for ALL of the other kids that are infected.

Oregon Revised Statutes and ORS 163.195 details the crime of “Recklessly Endangering Another Person” as follows:

A person commits the crime of recklessly endangering another person if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury to another person. Recklessly endangering another person is a Class A misdemeanor.
Oregon criminal law has various levels of mental states, including but not limited to: intentionally, knowingly, and recklessly.

Oregon defines “reckless” conduct in ORS 161.085(9) as follows:

“Recklessly, when used with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense, means that a person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.”

Reckless Endangering Another Person is a Class A misdemeanor in Oregon meaning that:
The maximum period of incarceration is one year in jail, the maximum period of supervision or probation that can be imposed is 5 years, and the maximum fine that can be imposed is $6,250.00.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me.