AMSN CEO Terri Hinkley, EdD, MBA, BScN, RN, CAE, participated in a podcast with journalist and podcaster Matt Leon for KYW NewsRadio, Phildelphia, PA, about risks to nurses and the broad-ranging implications of the recent RaDonda Vaught trial which resulted in the criminal conviction of a nurse for a medication administration error.

The RaDonda Vaught trial, and its results, have cast a shadow over this year’s celebration of National Nurses Month, and associated celebrations. Hinkley had this to say about the conviction: “If I could go to jail for making a mistake on my job, how likely am I going to want to be a part of that profession? I think it certainly is going to cause people to second-guess whether or not that’s a profession they want to be in; I certainly have heard several nurses say, ‘I just- I can’t bear the thought of this, I’m just going to leave and go do something else,’ or, ‘I just can’t take the risk, of having the potential of going to jail for making a mistake, I’m going to do something else…’”

Read more from Terri Hinkley about Nurses Week, nurse safety, and advocating for improved practice environments for nurses.

Listen to Matt Leon’s KYW NewsRadio Podcast episode, ‘"You could see a crisis:" what the RaDonda Vaught case tells us about nursing in America’.