RaDonda Vaught will appear in Tennessee court March 28 to appeal the state nursing board's 2021 decision to revoke her license, court records show.
If Ms. Vaught wins the appeal, she will undergo a new trial with the Tennessee Board of Nursing over a fatal medical error she made in 2017 while working as a nurse at Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Ms. Vaught immediately took responsibility for the error, which occurred after she overrode a medication cabinet, but contends that other factors and working conditions for nurses at the medical center contributed to the mistake. For example, she said that Vanderbilt directed nurses to use overrides to overcome cabinet delays and regular technical issues caused by an ongoing overhaul of the hospital's EHR system. Vanderbilt fired Ms. Vaught in January 2018, and the Tennessee Board of Nursing stripped her of her license in 2021.
Ms. Vaught was sentenced to three years of probation last May after being found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and abuse of an impaired adult in a separate criminal case.