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https://collider.com/the-nurse-netflix-true-story/

Another show on Netflix, based on a true story. Takes place in Denmark. A new nurse gets a job in an ER. She befriends an experienced ER nurse. The nurse finds adrenaline and excitement in codes and performing CPR/ life saving measures on patients. The new nurse starts to get suspicious of the experienced nurse and the amount of stable patients that randomly go into cardiac arrest and die. She finds out that the ER nurse is injecting patients with morphine and diazepam to put them into cardiac arrest.

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Another biopic about a sociopathic killer nurse has hit Netflix and is quickly making its way up the streamer's top 10 television shows list. The Danish thriller The Nurse is the compelling story of an "angel of death," a woman who works in a Danish hospital. Suspicion arises when relatively healthy patients start to die from unrelated cardiac arrest. Theseries is based on a book written by Kristian Corfixen, titled The Nurse: The True Story Behind One Of Scandinavia's Most Notorious Criminal Trials, and stars Fanny Louise Bernth as Pernille Kurzmann, a nurse who is working her first job after graduating from nursing school. The story is told from her point of view as she is quickly befriended by Christina Aistrup Hansen ( Josephine Park), an older and more experienced emergency room nurse at Nykobing Falster Hospital. The story is similar in many regards to the Netflix movie from 2022 starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne called The Good Nurse but is packed into four episodes that run less than an hour and wastes little time developing the character and the horrifying true events that occurred between 2012-2015.

Who Are Pernille and Christina?

Pernille is a single mom and rookie nurse who nervously arrives at Nykobing Falster Hospital eager to get started in the hectic emergency room. She quickly becomes familiar with all the other staff at the hospital as she gets up to speed with her new job. All her co-workers are friendly and form a cohesive unit that is tasked with dealing with the most urgent cases that come through the door. Before she can even get her name tag on, there is an emergency code blue call and this sets the pace for the tension-filled story. Soon thereafter, Pernille is just one of the gang and starts to work very closely with a veteran nurse named Christina, an adrenaline junkie who seems to thrive on the drama of the emergency room. She's an excellent nurse, though, and often knows as much or more about how to diagnose and treat patients as the doctors in the room. She and Pernille start working the late night shift and become close friends. Christina shows the new nurse the ropes, and they start calling themselves "the dream team" after working together to save several patients from near-death illnesses and cardiac arrest.

RELATED: New 'The Nurse' Trailer Shows a Tension-Filled Hunt to Expose the Truth

Something Is Strange About Christina

The Nurse does an excellent job of keeping the four-part limited miniseries clicking along at a brisk pace. Every scene serves to move the story forward and develop both the tone and two main character arcs. After a "honeymoon phase" of working closely with Christina, Pernille starts to notice a significant increase in the number of patients who are either young without any history of heart-related problems or are being treated for non-life-threatening illnesses that are experiencing sudden bouts of acute cardiac arrest. Christina is at her very best when she is under stress. She appears to really get off on the life-and-death situations that require life-saving CPR techniques and shots of adrenaline to restart the hearts of patients that are dead on the table. Sometimes the patient is revived, but they frequently die, and it starts to wear on Pernille, who is still trying to get used to the breakneck pace of the ER. But Christina is noticeably ambivalent about the unusually high death rate, playing it off as just part of the job.

Suspicions Start to Grow

After seeing patient after patient come in and be treated to the point where they are stable only to go into cardiac arrest and die, Pernille is starting to wonder if there is a correlation between the deaths. She also notices that doses of both morphine and diazepam are missing, and the fact that these cardiac arrests are all happening during her and Christina's night shifts. In Denmark, they do not have a strict policy of monitoring medications, so there are no records to keep track of what is being taken and when. This is how Charles Cullen was caught in The Good Nurse, but the less regulated Danish system makes it much more difficult to catch unscrupulous nurses and physicians. Pernille begins to realize that if she is going to blow the whistle on the accomplished and respected Christina, she is going to have to gather very strong evidence to support her accusations.

At First, Pernille is Not Believed

When Pernille goes to administrators about her concerns over the deaths, missing drugs, and Christina's odd behavior, she is rebuffed and encouraged to not engage in gossip that she can't substantiate. It isn't until she enters into a romantic relationship with a doctor at the hospital who corroborates her claims that the hospital starts to look into the more than 20 deaths that Christina has signed off on during her stint at Nykobing Falster Hospital. Without his support, it is very likely that Christina would have never been caught. After a thorough investigation, detectives did reach the conclusion that Christina Aistrup Hansen was, in fact, injecting lethal amounts of both morphine and diazepam (a benzo better known as Valium) directly into the bloodstream of unsuspecting patients to slow their respiratory rates and cause cardiac arrest.

Director of The Nurse, Kasper Barfoed, commented on the true story: "So many people suspected something or saw something - and yet it's the new nurse, the one who's in her first job who not only senses something is wrong, but who actually does something about it and risks everything," Kurzmann still works at Nykobing Hospital today.

Hansen Goes to Jail for Her Crimes

After a 28-day trial in 2016, Christina Aistrup Hansen was found guilty of murder and attempted murder, and was sentenced to life in prison. After Hansen appealed the jury's decision in 2017, her sentence was amended to four counts of attempted manslaughter, and the sentence was reduced from life to a period of 12 years. She is currently 39 years old and will be out of prison around the age of 50. A Danish psychologist diagnosed Hansen with "histrionic personality disorder," which causes people to go to extreme lengths to draw positive attention to themselves and is considered to be in the subset of narcissistic psychiatric disorders. It doesn't seem that the penalty fits the crime, but the show that tells the harrowing story of the killer nurse and the whistleblower colleague does justice by the audience enjoying the taut psychological thriller. Head on over to Netflix and give the short limited series an evening to binge all four episodes.

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The Horrifying True Story Behind Netflix's 'The Nurse'

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The Nurse tells the story of Christina Aistrup Hansen, a Danish nurse who killed dozens of patients. Here's the true story behind the Netflix series.

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The nurse in this case was caring for a woman who was admitted with a recent gastric bypass with a diagnosis of constipation. Two physicians assessed the patient over the course of two days and the second physician referred the patient for the following day to the surgeon who did the bypass. During the night the patient had a change in emesis that was tan and had a foul smell of bowel. The nurse did not think this change was necessary to report to the physician. The next day the patient deteriorated quickly and died one day later. The nurse's failure to report this change led to disciplinary action, although what type was not reported.

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If you work in a healthcare facility, such as a hospital or a nursing home, you know all too well that one of your important obligations is to inform the patient's physician or advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) when the patient's condition changes.
In his article, Malpractice Risks of Health Care Communication Failures, Jock Hoffman states that one-third of medical malpractice cases can be directly tied to communication breakdowns.

In the following unpublished case, a communication breakdown is outlined wherein a nurse's failure to report to the physician a major change in her patient's condition is said to have caused the patient's death. A wrongful death lawsuit soon follows.

Details of the Case

The 62-year-old female patient had a history of abdominal surgeries, including gastric bypass surgery. The surgeries resulted in "excessive" scar tissue.

She went to the ED complaining of abdominal pain and vomiting that began the day before. The patient's lungs were clear, but due to her symptoms, she was admitted for IV fluids to rehydrate her. Treatment for pain and nausea also was administered.

The patient was in the hospital for a few days, and a doctor diagnosed her with constipation. She was placed on "bowel rest" by limiting the amount of food she could eat. No surgery was indicated, according to the physician.

Two days after her admission, nursing notes indicated that the patient was "spitting up into emesis bag" and had "dry heaves." She was examined again by another physician who determined she was still constipated but was breathing "normally." The second physician was concerned, however, that the patient should be transferred and seen by the surgeon who did the gastric bypass surgery. She was to be transferred the next morning.

That night, the patient vomited numerous times during the night shift. The RN caring for her documented in the patient's medical record that the patient expressed a feeling like a "knot in [her] abdom[e]n" but her pain was decreased from earlier in the day.

The patient also was nauseous, had a small emesis, and a bowel movement.

The nurse did not observe any signs of aspiration, documenting that the patient's lungs were clear. Later that night, the RN documented that the patient had another emesis, "small, tan-colored...with a faint bowel odor throughout the night." The RN did not contact a doctor about these events.

When the patient was transferred in the morning, the RN's documentation indicated the patient was stable and her condition "did not seem to have deteriorated" since she began her care the night before.

The patient was transferred and arrived at the second hospital "looking comfortable, not in distress" according to her physician's admitting note. However, the patient's condition soon changed.

The white-blood-cell count was low, a CAT scan showed a bowel obstruction and evidence of pneumonia in sections of her lungs, despite no symptoms of pneumonia. Antibiotics to treat the pneumonia were immediately administered, but the patient's condition continued to worsen. She died the following day. The autopsy listed the patient's death as "pneumonia as a result of aspiration."

Son Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit

The patient's son filed his case against the hospital and the physicians who cared for his mother. Before trial, several of the physicians were dismissed from the case by agreement of the parties. The case against the hospital and the surgeon who admitted her to the second hospital went before a jury.

The jury returned a verdict for the son, finding that the professional negligence of the hospital nurses caused the deceased patient's death, and awarded him $500,000.

However, the trial court later granted judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) for the hospital and granted the hospital's motion for a new trial.

The son filed an appeal, disputing both of the trial court's decisions.

The Appellate Court Holding

The appeals court held that the trial court was in error by granting the JMOL for the hospital. The court stated that the expert opinion testimony during trial was sufficient to support the jury's verdict; that is, that the RN's failure to notify a physician of the emesis tan in color and its odor "substantially contributed" to the patient's death.

It characterized the emesis as a "significant change...which triggered the nurse's legal duty to contact the physician."

The trial court also erred in granting the hospital's motion for a new trial, holding that the hospital's claim of no evidence being presented about the professional negligence of the nursing staff in general, was not true.

The appellate court discussed at length the evidence presented concerning not only the RN's care, but also the general nursing care given to the patient at the hospital. Since the hospital did not object then, it was not allowable to do so at the appellate level.

The court reversed the grant of the JMOL for the hospital and the grant of a new trial. It remanded the case with instructions to reinstate the jury verdict for the son.

What This Wrongful Death Case Means for You

It is difficult to understand why the RN caring for this patient did not think that the change in the patient's condition - the emesis' color and its odor - would not be a reason to contact the physician.

The RN's omission, however, is perhaps a vivid example of not being mindful when one needs to be. It is important that you always be mindful when providing patient care.

As a nurse employee, you always carry the burden on your shoulders of your own potential legal liability, and also that of your employer. The RN was not a named defendant in the suit. However, her failure to adhere to the standard of care with this patient resulted in the hospital's vicarious (indirect) liability.

Although not a named defendant in this wrongful death suit, the RN most likely faced a professional disciplinary action by the state board of nursing if she was reported to the board. Such a reporting could be initiated by the deceased patient's son, the hospital or, if mandated by state law, the court itself.

Remember that professional disciplinary action is always a possibility when you violate your nurse practice act and its rules. Constant review of both is essential.

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Nurse's Inaction Leads to Wrongful Death Lawsuit for Hospital | Nurse.com

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If you work in a healthcare facility, such as a hospital or a nursing home, you know all too well that one of your important obligations is to inform the patient's physician or advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) when the patient's condition changes.

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https://nursejournal.org/articles/radonda-vaught-medical-errors-what-nurses-can-do/

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Update:

On May 13, 2022, RaDonda Vaught was sentenced to three years supervised probation with judicial diversion. The diversion option allows first-time offenders to have charges dropped and their records expunged once they successfully complete probation. Vaught faced a potential sentence of up to eight years imprisonment.

Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Smith noted that there "have been consequences to the defendant." Although Vaught will not be imprisoned unless she violates the probation conditions, she was fired and lost her nursing license.

Nurses and other healthcare workers attended the trial to protest the criminalization of nursing mistakes. After the verdict was announced, many applauded.

Joelle Y. Jean, RN, FNP-C, feels very happy with the sentencing. Along with the sentencing, Jean feels even happier nurses rallied together to support Vaught.

"We need to keep this same energy when other nurses find themselves in situations like this," Jean says. "We need to continue to have each other's backs and fight for what's right and speak up, even if it's through social media or writing to our legislators."

Organizations including the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) spoke out on the trial overall:

"While we are relieved that Ms. RaDonda Vaught did not receive a prison sentence, we remain disappointed and deeply concerned about the criminalization of error in medicine, which offers no remedy for improving patient safety. In fact, Ms. Vaught's arrest and conviction makes patients less safe," the IHI said in a statement.

"We are grateful to the judge for demonstrating leniency in the sentencing of Nurse Vaught. Unfortunately, medical errors can and do happen, even among skilled, well-meaning, and vigilant nurses and healthcare professionals," the ANA said in a statement.

In March 2022, a jury found former Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired adult after injecting a patient with the wrong medication, bypassing several safeguards and system warnings. The Vaught trial brings public attention to how medical errors happen in nursing and how safeguards can fail.

Healthcare providers, especially nurses, have been watching events closely due to the rarity of criminal trials for nursing mistakes. Instead, most nursing errors are addressed through nursing boards for professional discipline and civil courts for legal consequences.

"This case is a nurse's worst nightmare," family nurse practitioner Joelle Jean says.

Some nurses fear that as a result of this nurse trial:

Medical mistakes will be increasingly criminalized.

Nurses will be the scapegoats for overall failures to create a culture of safety.

Nurses will be afraid to admit to medical errors or to report others' errors.

"The criminalization of medical errors is unnerving, and this verdict sets into motion a dangerous precedent," the American Nurses Association said in a statement in response to the conviction of Vaught.

This article explains what happened and the steps nurses and nurse leaders can take to support safety at an individual and organizational level.

What Happened in the Vaught Case: In Brief

On Dec. 24, 2017, Charlene Murphey was admitted with a brain injury to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where DeRonda Vaught worked as a nurse. To prepare her for a brain scan, Murphey was prescribed Versed, a benzodiazepine used to help patients relax.

The fatal medical error resulted from Vaught's interactions with an electronic medication cabinet, where nurses must enter the first part of the medication's generic name to withdraw a drug. Vaught attempted to withdraw Versed by typing "VE" into the system without realizing she should be searching for "midazolam," the generic name for Versed.

When the cabinet did not dispense Versed, Vaught triggered an override of the machine and withdrew vecuronium, a paralyzing medication, overlooking at least five warnings.

She administered the vecuronium and left Murphey to be scanned. Murphey died, and Vaught testified in a hearing that she was at fault because she had been "distracted" and "complacent."

The state board of nursing rescinded her nursing license, and Vaught was later charged with reckless homicide. She was acquitted of that charge but convicted of gross neglect of an impaired adult and negligent homicide, both lesser charges.

When Medical Mistakes Happen in Healthcare

Medical error is a leading cause of illness, injury, and death. Medication errors are one of the most common types. The numbers show how serious the situation is.

The Food and Drug Administration receives more than 100,000 reports of medication errors annually.

About four out of 10 Americans (41%) have experienced or known somebody affected by a medical error.

More than 7 million Americans are affected each year by medication errors, and the total annual cost is $40 billion.

The estimated medication error rate is between 8% and 25%.

As in any field, medical errors are especially likely to happen when staff is overworked, either through fatigue, distraction, or not having enough time to check and recheck safety measures.

"My thoughts are very similar to nurses and healthcare providers who are overworked, tired, and burnt out," Jean says. "This could happen to any one of us at any point in our career."

She adds that the consequences for nurses can be especially grave. Jean encourages nurses to seek ways to protect their license.

"I hope this case is also a wake-up call for nurses, your job is to care for patients, but you must always protect your license no matter what," Jean says.

Safeguards and When They Fail

The role of safeguards played a major role in the Vaught trial.

Vaught performed manual overrides when accessing the medication and saw, but did not act upon, several warning messages. The prosecution argued that this was so reckless that Vaught's behavior qualified as a homicide. In contrast, the defense and many nurses argued that the safeguards were so faulty that nurses routinely overrode them to access the correct drugs.

State investigators found that Vanderbilt University Medical Center carried a "heavy burden of responsibility," but only Vaught faced criminal charges.

"For this unfortunate event to occur, many systems were broken, and many people were involved," Jean states.

Creating a Culture of Safety as Nurses and Nurse Leaders

Administering medication safely requires five "rights":

All parties, including hospital or provider administrators, the healthcare team, nurse leaders, and frontline nurses, can and must foster a culture of safety to ensure these five rights and prevent medical errors.

"In order to create a stronger culture of safety, [nurses] have to stick together," Jean says. "We have to feel supported by the top nursing executives, down to our nursing colleagues. We have to put systems in place that support the nurse and not isolate them."

What Nurses Can Do

In addition to being sure to perform safety checks as individuals, nurses can act to sustain a culture of safety to prevent medical errors. Here are six ways nurses can ensure a culture of safety and protect themselves.

1. If You See Something, Say Something

Nurses can help prevent medical errors by speaking up if they notice a potential error in any of the five rights. This may sometimes require speaking up about a physician's or supervisor's potential error, but the ability to do so safely is a must for a true culture of safety.

2. Understand Your Limits

Healthcare workers are in a bind when they are overworked. While they know they need to rest to perform effectively, the nursing shortage has forced many to work even when they don't have enough rest.

If you're tired, put extra effort into checking and rechecking to avoid medical errors. Alert a supervisor if you're aware that you can't perform safely.

3. Report Issues With Systems That Require Overrides

The prosecution emphasized that Vaught performed several overrides to access the wrong medication during the trial. The defense countered that nurses routinely performed overrides to access correct medications.

Nurses can address this issue by reporting false alarms and excessive overrides to superiors. They can document the number of overrides they must perform to access the correct medications. The Vaught trial may make administrators more aware of the importance of accurate warnings.

4. Pay Attention to Alerts and Alarms

During the Vaught trial, both parties agreed that Vaught saw several warnings as she prepared the incorrect medication. They disagreed on whether this was a case of a professional mistakenly ignoring "the boy who cried wolf" or reckless misconduct.

During the aftermath of this nurse trial, nurses should demand support for taking the extra time it takes to mentally process each alarm message and determine if it is valid or a false alarm. Like overrides, nurses can support safety by reporting false alarms and unnecessary alerts, both for the sake of efficiency and avoiding medical errors.

5. Unionize the Workplace

While there are pros and cons to nurse union membership, unions can strengthen the voices of individual nurses. Unions can require staffing ratios and mandate working conditions that include enough rest between shifts.

"Nurses need more protection, and that can be in the form of a nursing union," Jean says.

6. Protect Yourself

A history of speaking out about errors can help document that you actively promote patient safety. Consider getting your own nurse malpractice insurance to protect yourself and your license as well.

"We need to be taught to carry our own malpractice insurance, empowered to say no, [and] demand safe staffing and safe nurse-to-patient ratios," Jean says.

What Nurse Leaders Can Do

Beyond nurses, nurse leaders and hospitals have a role in protecting nurses and creating a culture of safety. Protecting nurses fosters a culture of safety that protects patients.

"Nursing leaders and healthcare institutions have the responsibility to create, measure, and reevaluate the systems that are in place to protect the nurse as well as the patient," Jean says.

1. Advocate for Their Staff

Nurse leaders must ensure that their staff are equipped to prevent errors, both their own potential errors and those of others. This includes adequate staffing, tools, and education.

They must protect nurses from retaliation for reporting errors and model speaking up when they notice potential medical errors.

2. Create an Environment of Accountability

Jean says that many nurses feel unsupported and that if things go wrong, they will be "thrown under the bus."

Nurse leaders can create a culture of accountability by ensuring that the organization's emphasis is on preventing medical errors at a systems and an individual level, rather than punishment after the fact, and that everybody is held responsible for preventing errors.

When nurses believe that the culture of accountability permits them to speak up and that everybody takes responsibility for their actions, they feel they can speak up. They might also recommend improvements and act as a team to prevent medical errors.

3. Ensure Proper Staffing Ratios

Nurse staffing levels affect how much time nurses can dedicate to safety checks and how likely they are to be distracted or functioning without enough rest. Studies consistently associate higher staffing ratios with better patient outcomes.

4. Incorporating Rounds and Debriefs as Daily Practices

Rounds and debriefs ensure that all providers know and communicate about patient conditions and prescribed treatments. They allow all participants to ask and answer questions in real time.

Rounds and debriefs also foster a habit of communication. They can develop professional relationships that help care providers communicate more effectively. Jean also urges providers to implement hourly huddles to share important information.

5. Encourage Writing and Reporting Incident Reports

Incident reports allow healthcare providers to understand what happened in the case of medical errors. Nurse leaders and administrators can use incident reports to look for patterns or potential failure points leading to medical errors.

6. Constantly Look for Ways to Improve Safety

Jean urges nurse leaders to perform root cause analysis to foster a culture of safety and recommends "creating hard stops and performing 'time outs' for all procedures."

A culture where nurses and all staff feel as though they will be listened to means that they will share ideas for improving safety.

7. Build Multidisciplinary Collaborations

Every team in a hospital has a role to play in preventing medical errors, not just clinicians. Human resources can support education, informatics teams can collect and analyze data, technology teams can carry out or recommend software and systems improvements, and clinicians at all levels can share ideas on improving safety and reducing medical errors.

Process, Culture, and Communications

As we saw in the Vaught trial, medical errors often stem from a series of potential risks. Poor judgments at the point of care play a part and did so in this case. But systemic issues are also at play, including tools that generate so many false alarms that it's difficult to decipher real warnings from warnings that don't trigger specific actions.

In other cases of medical errors, nurses being overworked and fatigued, poor internal communications, especially during handoffs, and a culture of working around problems rather than addressing them all contribute.

Nurses and nurse leaders can, and usually do, prevent medical errors at the individual and systemic levels and must be given the tools and access to do even more.

Meet Our Contributor

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Update: RaDonda Vaught Sentenced To 3 Years Supervised Probation | NurseJournal

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Update: On May 13, 2022, RaDonda Vaught was sentenced to three years supervised probation with judicial diversion. The diversion option allows first-time offenders to have charges dropped and their records expunged once they successfully complete probation. Vaught faced a potential sentence of up to eight years imprisonment.

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The Good Nurse - Movie on Netflix based on a True Story

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The Good Nurse - Movie on Netflix based on a True Story

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Charles Cullen "The Angel of Death" was an RN that was suspected to have killed over 300 patients while working in 10 healthcare facilities, 9 hospitals and one LTC facility from 1988-2003.

Ammie Loughren claims Cullen knew more about medication than any pharmacist she'd ever met. He was intelligent.

A computer system at the hospital showed he was accessing medical records of patients he had no reason to be treating, ordering bizarre array of drugs (with no doctors order) and in rooms he had no business being in.

Many patients he'd murdered had begun showing signs of improvement before they suddenly died. His go to medication was Digoxin and Paralytics.

Upon being interrogated, Cullen seemed smug and proud about what he did. He claimed he took the lives of his patients to "end their suffering" and was only upset he was caught.
Fortunately, He was convicted of 18 life sentences.

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Melissa, Kati, Marisella, Morgan, Valeria

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Melissa, Kati, Marisella, Morgan, Valeria

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Nurse in WI amputated a hospice patient's foot which is out of her scope of practice, she had no orders, and the doctor was unaware.  Patient did not consent to this procedure.  Nurse had two nursing assistants assist her.  Nurse's intention was to keep the foot and preserve it in her parent's taxidermy shop.  She was going to put it on display with a sign that read "Wear Your Boots Kids!"

The patient's foot was necrotic and was only being held on by one tendon and some skin. The nurse stated she thought she was improving his quality of life by removing the foot.  The patient stated to another nurse that he did not consent and the procedure was painful.

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WI Nurse charged with amputating patients foot without his consent or doctors order

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WI Nurse charged with amputating patients foot without his consent or doctors order

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https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2022/11/10/wisconsin-nurse-charged-in-unauthorized-amputation-of-foot/69629731007/

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A nurse in western Wisconsin has been charged with two felony counts of elder abuse for allegedly amputating a hospice patient's foot without a doctor's order or patient's consent. She then told colleagues she wanted to preserve and display the foot at her family's taxidermy shop, according to a criminal complaint filed last week in Pierce County.

Mary K. Brown, 38, of Durand, is scheduled to appear in Pierce County Circuit Court on Dec. 6.

Brown was working at Spring Valley Health and Rehab Center on May 27, when the incident occurred, according to the criminal complaint. The 40-bed facility in Spring Valley, a village of 1,400 people, is located near the Minnesota border in Pierce and St. Croix counties. While at the Spring Valley center, the victim was receiving separate care through hospice health workers from St. Croix County. Brown was not part of that care; she is not a hospice nurse.

The victim was 62, but neither his name nor his date of death are included in the complaint. He was dead, however, by June 4, when Pierce County Medical Examiner John Worsing contacted police. Worsing also sent the victim's body to Ramsey County, Minnesota, for an autopsy due to "unusual circumstances."

There is no indication in the complaint that the amputation hastened the death.

The victim had been admitted to Spring Valley facility in March after falling in his home. The complaint does not indicate how long it was before the man was found, but the heat in his home was not turned on, causing the tissue in his feet to become necrotic and die from frostbite.

One tendon, which connects muscle to bone, and roughly 2 inches of skin were keeping the foot attached to his leg. A nurse who had changed his foot bandages the morning of May 27 said the victim was "able to wiggle his toes," according to the complaint.

Brown told two other nurses at shift change that day that she was "going to cut off the victim's foot for comfort," the criminal complaint said. The other two nurses told her not to and "to leave the foot attached," it said. Shortly after the conversation, Brown and two certified nursing assistants went into the victim's room to change the bandages on his feet.

Rather than change the bandages, Brown "cut the victim's tendon, which amputated his right foot completely," one of the nursing assistants in the room told an investigator. The foot was then placed in a red biohazard bag and placed in a freezer.

One of the nursing assistants said Brown was "pushing her to retrieve the foot" so Brown could take it home and preserve it, according to the complaint. The nursing assistant told the investigator Brown said her family has a taxidermy shop and she was going to preserve the foot and put it on display with a sign that said "Wear your boots kids."

Kevin Larson, the administrator and CEO of Spring Valley Senior Living and Health Care Campus, immediately was made aware of the situation. However, Tracy Reitz, the center's director of nursing, was not told until two days later when a nursing assistant who was "distraught about the incident," called her, according to the complaint. Reitz said the nursing assistant told her the victim did not appear to be in pain when his foot was amputated, according to the complaint.

That conflicts with the testimony of another nurse, who told the investigator she asked the victim two days after his foot was amputated what had happened and the victim told the nurse that "he felt everything and it hurt very bad," according to the complaint.

Many missing entries in patient's chart

Brown had been licensed to work as a registered nurse in Wisconsin just shy of two years at the time of the alleged incident. She received her nursing license on July 14, 2020, according to the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services.

Reitz told the investigator she spoke with Brown the day she found out about the amputation to discuss a nurse's scope of practice, which does not include amputations. Brown told Reitz she did not know why she did it, and "she didn't think until after the fact that she was doing it for him and giving him comfort."

Brown told an investigator the victim did not ask her to remove his foot, which she described as "mummy feet," but she did it to make his quality of life better, according to the criminal complaint. She acknowledged it was outside her scope of practice and "she did not have any authorization to remove the victim's foot," it said.

Larson said there were "a lot of missing entries in regard to the victim's chart," including the foot amputation, according to the complaint. He said "best practice" should have been for Brown to get an order from a doctor to remove the foot, and he believes the hospice doctor caring for the victim would have given the order, according to the complaint.

"We have and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation into this matter," Larson said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Larson added that Brown is not employed at the care center.

The maximum penalty for each felony count is up to a $100,000 fine, up to 40 years in prison, or both. The charges each include up to six additional years in prison because the victim was elderly.

Nino Amato, a longtime activist who lobbied against elderly abuse as the former president and CEO of Council of Wisconsin Aging and Health Groups, read the complaint.

"That's just insane," said Amato. "Why would you allow this to go on for so long? They should have put him in an ambulance (back in March), taken him to an emergency room or surgery center and had his foot amputated. This is a classic case of systemic elder abuse."

Amato said the victim's family or legal guardian have a winnable and justifiable case for a medical malpractice lawsuit and gross nursing rehabilitation malfeasance case.

"It is just bizarre that a nurse would think she can do that," Amato said. "My gut tells me there is a lot more to this situation than meets the eye."

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Nurse from Pierce County, Wisconsin, charged with amputating patient's foot without his knowledge or doctor's authorization

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A nurse in western Wisconsin has been charged with two felony counts of elder abuse for allegedly amputating a hospice patient's foot without a doctor's order or patient's consent. She then told colleagues she wanted to preserve and display the foot at her family's taxidermy shop, according to a criminal complaint filed last week in Pierce County.

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RaDonda Vaught faced prosecution related to a pt death under her care. Vaught was precepting for a student and had a busy day; it was right in the middle of this day when she received an order to administer Versed to a pt with claustrophobia that was scheduled for CT (or MRI i dont remember). When Vaught went to pull Versed from the medication dispensing system, she was conversing with her student while simultaneously bypassing all the alarms alerting her to the med error she had just committed. During the conversation with her student, Vaught accidentally pulled vecuronium, a muscle relaxant. She then administered the wrong drug. After administering the drug, Vaught did not evaluate the pt's response before sending her into the imaging room. The pt died during the procedure due to resp arrest.

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Lisa, Deon, Patti, Ashley, Whitney, Micaela

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Lisa, Deon, Patti, Ashley, Whitney, Micaela

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A nursing malpractice case where a nurse (Marsh v. Arnot Ogden Medical Center) who mistakenly gives an order for insulin to a patient who was not diabetic (Daughter stated PT was not diabetic and did not take insulin but nurse gave anyway). The physician ordered glucose monitoring every 2 hours and advised the nurse to call if glucose fell below 120. Glucose levels were within limits at 815pm and again at 1015pm. Glucose monitoring was discontinued until the morning. By 615am the blood glucose level was at 15. The patient died of insulin overdose. The doctor was fined for not coming to see patient and for discontinuing glucose monitoring. The nurse was fined. With regard to the medical center, the PTs medical record did not contain info regarding medication error until 4 months after the patients death.
References: American Journal of Nursing
The Elements of a Nursing Malpractice Case. Part 4: Harm

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A nursing instructor inserted a feeding tube twice which ended up in the lung. This caused pneumonia and a tension pneumothorax. He wasn't competent in the skill and didn't have an order from the doctor. The patient ended up passing away.

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A registered nurse found liable last year for botching a procedure that caused the death of a 73-year-old patient at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance now faces allegations that could result in revocation of his work license.

John Vincent Flynn, listed on El Camino College's Spring and Fall 2021 class schedules as a faculty member who teaches nursing skills courses, was accused May 11 by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state Board of Registered Nursing of gross negligence or incompetence, and unprofessional conduct, for twice inserting a feeding tube into Mansoor Lahiji's lungs in 2014.

At the time, Flynn was not qualified to perform the procedure and he did so without a required doctor's order, county records showed.

Although Flynn remains listed on El Camino College's website as a nursing program faculty member and instructor on nursing fundamentals courses for the fall semester beginning in August, a college spokeswoman said Tuesday, May 25, that he is on leave. Testifying in a 2017 deposition in a lawsuit filed against him, Flynn said he began work as a part-time adjunct faculty member in the El Camino program beginning in 2016.

"The District can confirm that Mr. Flynn is currently on leave from El Camino College as a faculty member," spokeswoman Ann O'Brien said. "The District regrets the tragic loss of life that occurred. As personnel matters are confidential, the District is unable to comment further."

According to the Spring 2021 course schedule - for classes that began in February and end June 11 - Flynn was listed as an instructor for several courses, including "Nursing Skills Practicum 1." The schedule said students in the class would learn to apply nursing skills, including "parenteral medication administration, wet-to-moist dressing change, nasogastric tube insertion, feeding and removal, and gastrostomy or jejunostomy feeding."

Tube insertion caused death

Coroner's reports and a jury verdict found that Flynn's insertion of a nasogastric tube into Lahiji's lungs caused his death on Oct. 2, 2014.

"It's just frightening," said Lahiji's daughter, Dr. Arta Lahiji, a physician in Los Angeles. "Performing procedures that you are competent to perform is fundamental to the practice of clinical nursing. That he is potentially mentoring other young nursing students when he doesn't have a fundamental understanding of that ... it's really frightening."

Arta Lahiji's father, a diabetic who had suffered a stroke in 2007, sought treatment at Little Company for confusion and difficulty staying conscious 11 days before he died. Doctors discovered a subdural hematoma, a collection of blood on the left side of his brain. He underwent surgery, spent time in intensive care and was transferred to a regular room.

On the day Lahiji died, his wife, Nahid, watched as Flynn inserted a Dobhoff feeding tube to provide nutrition. Nahid Lahiji told the Southern California News Group last year that Flynn struggled as he worked, telling her the tube was not in the right place and that it had to be removed and reinserted. Nahid Lahiji said she asked for someone else to take over and to call a doctor.

"He said to me, 'I know what I'm doing, don't worry,' " she said.

After another nurse replaced Flynn at the end of his shift, Lahiji's wife told her what had transpired earlier. The nurse asked for an X-ray, which discovered the tube in Lahiji's right lung instead of his stomach.

The nurse pulled the tube out, which the Lahiji family's attorney likened to pulling a nail out of a tire. Lahiji's lung deflated and he later died in terrible pain.

Daughter pushes for probes

Arta Lahiji, an internal medicine physician in New York at the time, traveled to Los Angeles to be with her family during her father's surgery, but had returned home, believing the worst was over. Planning to come back to Los Angeles to help her father rehabilitate, she arrived instead for his funeral, questioning what had happened. She was told the nurse had damaged her father's right lung with the first tube insertion, and then punctured his left with his second ill-fated try.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials, however, didn't know that. Basing its conclusions on reports supplied by the hospital, the coroner's office issued a death certificate stating Lahiji died from the subdural hematoma. Describing that as a cover-up, Arta Lahiji pushed for local and state authorities to investigate.

Coroner's officials secured Lahiji's medical records that showed the feeding tube insertion and changed his cause of death to "tension pneumothorax from nasogastric tube placement and replacement." The coroner's report concluded that Lahiji's other medical issues, epilepsy and diabetes, contributed to his death but did not cause it.

Public health officials also conducted a surprise inspection at the hospital and recovered Flynn's personnel records that revealed inserting a feeding tube was not listed among his nursing "competencies," the procedures he was qualified to perform.

Jury finds nurse, hospital liable

Nahid Lahiji filed suit against Flynn and the hospital and won her case. In 2020, in a final action March 16 as the county and state shut down when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury in Beverly Hills found Little Company and Flynn liable for Mansoor Lahiji's death, ordering the hospital to pay Lahiji's wife $20,645 to cover his funeral and burial expenses, and $1.5 million for her emotional loss.

State laws, however, cap noneconomic damages at $250,000, so Judge Helen Zukin reduced the larger figure to the smaller amount.

Attempts to contact Flynn through his El Camino College phone number and email address were not successful. The Nursing Board's accusation lists him as an Inglewood resident.

Settlement an option

Michelle Cave, a spokeswoman for the Department of Consumer Affairs, said Flynn had 15 days to file a Notice of Defense after he was served with the accusation. The case eventually would be heard by an administrative law judge, although it could be settled if the nursing board and Flynn reach an agreement beforehand.

"The licensee may agree to the conditions outlined in the Prayer of the Accusation, or the licensee may decide to surrender their license or accept probation before a hearing is held," Cave said.

The accusation said Flynn originally was licensed on March 11, 2009. His current license expires on Aug. 31, 2022. According to his 2017 deposition, he went to work immediately for Little Company and was still working there at the time. It was not clear when he left.

During his deposition, Flynn said he also had worked as a relief nurse for County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Carson and had taught classes at Western Governors University, an online school, and at Los Angeles Trade Tech.

Malpractice liability limits

During the years since her father's death, Arta Lahiji has written to politicians to encourage them to change laws that cap the amounts doctors and hospitals pay in malpractice cases. She said that had she not earned a doctor's living, she never could have afforded her civil lawsuit.

She accused Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center of hurting her family.

"Even after we received justice by a unanimous jury verdict of 12-0 against them, they still had the audacity to publicly issue statements not taking responsibility for their actions and stating they disagree with the verdict," Arta Lahiji said.

"Part of helping a family whose loved one was negligently killed find closure is to apologize and take responsibility. To this day, almost seven years later, after a unanimous verdict and now an accusation filed by the deputy attorney general of California, they still have not done that."

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Nurse blamed for death of California man faces possible loss of license

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A registered nurse found liable last year for botching a procedure that caused the death of a 73-year-old patient at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance now faces allegations that could result in revocation of his work license.

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Fox News - Interview with Amy Loughren about her time working with "The Angel of Death"

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Fox News - Interview with Amy Loughren about her time working with "The Angel of Death"

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https://www.foxnews.com/us/killer-nurse-charles-cullen-darkness-to-him-recalls-colleague-helped-put-murderer

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Charles Cullen is believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in American history - and it was his former pal Amy Loughren who helped take him down.

The 62-year-old admitted to killing 29 people from 1988 to 2003. Cullen, who had a history of mental illness, worked in nine hospitals and one nursing home. It is speculated that he may have murdered more than 300 patients while working as a nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Cullen was the subject of a scripted drama premiered by Netflix on Oct. 26 titled "The Good Nurse," which was based on the bestselling 2013 book by Charles Graeber. It starred Eddie Redmayne as Cullen and Jessica Chastain as Loughren.

Now, the streaming giant has recently unveiled the true-crime doc by Emmy-nominated director Tim Travers titled "Capturing the Killer Nurse," which explores Cullen's hidden spree of horrific slayings. It features audio from Cullen himself, as well as emotional sit-downs from family members of the victims, the detectives behind the investigation, as well as Loughren, the whistleblower of the case.
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"Knowing that Netflix wanted to tell the real story and not just the Hollywood story made me very excited," Loughren told Fox News Digital. "I felt it was very important to make sure that the victims and the victims' families had a voice. That was the most important thing for me."

Loughren was a single mother of two when she started working as a nurse in the intensive care unit at New Jersey's Somerset Medical Center sometime around 2000. She also worked as a trauma and ER nurse. It was there where she met and befriended Cullen as they worked together.

"Charlie was funny," she recalled. "He was very sarcastic. He was always very self-deprecating. He would turn everything back on himself and make a joke about it. He was also brilliant and knew more about medications than any pharmacist I had ever met. He really understood policies and procedures. I trusted him more than any other nurse that I worked with."

"Of course, all nurses are well-versed in medications," she continued. "However, even after 35 years of being a nurse, I still look up medications... We had our little physician's desk reference that talked about all the side effects and adverse reactions to medications. And looking up medications is a safety procedure we have. But Charlie always seemed to know them all right off the top of his head."
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Loughren confided in Cullen that she was suffering from cardiomyopathy, a condition that impacts the heart muscle. During days when she became faint, it was Cullen who quietly stepped in to help.

"He felt more like somebody who was dealing with depression," she recalled. "He didn't seem to hide that. I believe what I was drawn to was the fact that he was shy and quiet. He wasn't as social as the other nurses. He didn't come and hang out at the nurses' station with us. He would occasionally, but for the most part, it was me seeking him out. We worked together, we would turn patients together. We would talk about our personal lives while we were doing our jobs."

It would not be until 2003 when Loughren was approached by investigators who were suspicious of the number of deaths at Somerset that were connected to Cullen. Rev. Florian J. Gall was being treated at the facility and was showing signs of improvement when he suddenly died.

At first, Loughren was taken aback that Cullen could somehow be involved. But then she was shown a record of dosing information of drugs that her colleague had withdrawn while on duty in the ICU. Loughren quickly realized something was not right.
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"When I found out he was fired, I was so upset," she explained. "I felt he was such a good nurse and if he could be fired, all of us could be fired. It sent a shockwave of fear through everyone. We were a team effort on our floor and he was our strongest teammate. When I called him to talk about it, he kept saying how confused he was... But when I was in that questioning room, the lead investigator took an opportunity when my representative left the room to give me some papers. It showed evidence of Charlie's activity with specific medications. It was so clear from those entries that something sinister was going on."

It was at that moment Loughren realized she needed to help the investigators stop Cullen before more patients were hurt. She then secretly began working with a team of detectives and an assistant prosecutor on the case.

"I was very sick at the time and there was talk about having to have a heart transplant," she said. "I could have decreased my stress and maybe just stay behind the scenes. But I realized that if these were my last days and I did not help put away this serial killer, then I wasn't who I believed myself to be. And when I became a nurse, I swore to protect those patients. And I had failed in that. I wanted to make it right. That's what gave me the courage because those patients were at their most vulnerable. It was my job to keep them safe and I didn't."

In the documentary, Loughren said she suddenly had a flashback of walking into Cullen injecting a patient. At the time, she didn't realize he was committing murder.
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"I had so much guilt because I saw that moment," she tearfully said. "Perhaps I could have stopped him... Obviously, I did not know what was really going on. But I made a pact that I would do anything to make certain that he would never harm another patient."

Loughren agreed to wear a wire and meet Cullen at a local restaurant. As detectives waited outside, she confronted Cullen about all the deaths in the hospital that were somehow connected to him. She even offered to accompany him to the police station where he could turn himself in.

"He suddenly became so smug and proud," she said. "There was a darkness to him. The confusion I first heard in his voice was gone. This was no longer my friend Charlie. His posture, the way he communicated, his voice - it all changed. Even the color of his eyes seemed to change. Then I realized it was over. It was finally over."

Cullen was finally caught after killing 13 patients in less than a year. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to killing 29 patients and the attempted murder of six more. In 2006, he was sentenced to 18 consecutive life terms. Cullen claimed that he committed his crimes to ease the suffering of his patients. Loughren said Cullen is only sorry he was caught.
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"I wanted to believe he was a mercy killer," she said. "I wanted to believe so badly that my friend Charlie just wanted to put people out of their misery. But the patients he chose were better. Many of them had their discharge papers ready. Many of them were already on the road to recovery. They were going to be transferred out. Some of them were very young and were definitely going to survive."

"And then I saw the medications he chose," she continued. "There are hundreds of medications he could have given these patients just to help them fall asleep and go off into nothingness, never waking up again peacefully. Instead, he chose medications that were brutal. He chose medications that would terrorize patients... I do not believe he is sorry at all."

Cullen often volunteered to work the night shift, which Loughren said was "very hard to fill and keep people in." During late hours, he would sneak into the rooms of his unsuspecting patients and inject them with lethal doses of drugs. His go-to was digoxin, which is used to regulate heart rhythm.

Following Cullen's confession, Somerset Medical Center, as well as other New Jersey hospitals, supported the passing of the "Cullen Law." It requires healthcare providers to report to the state "any employee's impairment, incompetence or misconduct that could affect patient safety," the documentary noted. It also requires those reports to be disclosed to potential employers.
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Loughren retired about a year and a half ago, noting that some of her health challenges have returned.

"I was a confidential informant," she said. "I didn't think anyone would ever know my name. But I couldn't sit back. We needed justice. We needed good over evil."

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'Killer Nurse' Charles Cullen 'had a darkness to him,' recalls colleague who helped put murderer behind bars

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Charles Cullen is believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in American history - and it was his former pal Amy Loughren who helped take him down. The 62-year-old admitted to killing 29 people from 1988 to 2003. Cullen, who had a history of mental illness, worked in nine hospitals and one nursing home.