When RaDonda Vaught got her first speaking request, it had been a year since that day in a Nashville courtroom, when she listened as a jury read her guilty verdict for negligent homicide and neglect of an impaired adult.
That was in 2022. Vaught was sentenced to three years of probation for administering the wrong medication and 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.