Quality and safety

A 3-year-old inpatient was given 15 mg of oral morphine instead of the prescribed 1.5 mg one hour ago, because a decimal point on the drug chart was misread. He…

Pre-internship · common

A 12-month audit of a paediatric ward identifies four prescriptions in which a weight-based dose was written ten times higher than intended; two of these reache…

Clinical rotations · middle twist

A medical student writes a medication order on the chart of a 3-year-old girl weighing 14 kg who has been admitted with an asthma exacerbation. The order reads:…

Clinical rotations · common

A 58-year-old woman telephones the practice at 5 pm. She has read an online news article claiming that a medicine she has taken for three years has been linked…

Pre-internship · middle twist

A general practice registrar is deciding which antidepressant to start for a 40-year-old man with a first episode of major depression of moderate severity. She…

Clinical rotations · common

A general practice registrar reads a news report that the Australian regulator has issued a new warning about a mood stabiliser she prescribes, concerning a pos…

Clinical rotations · middle twist

A 78-year-old woman is being discharged after an admission with melaena. She takes apixaban for atrial fibrillation. Gastroscopy showed a bleeding duodenal ulce…

Clinical rotations · middle twist

You are the intern on a Perth surgical ward. Overnight a 74-year-old woman received ten times the intended dose of insulin because of a prescribing error you ma…

Pre-internship · middle twist

You are the intern in a Perth emergency department at 0200. Paramedics have just handed over a 78-year-old woman brought in after a fall at home, using the stru…

Clinical rotations · common

You are the intern covering a paediatric ward at a Perth public hospital at 2100. The mother of a 6-year-old boy admitted this morning with fever and vomiting s…

Pre-internship · middle twist

You are the intern on an evening shift at a public hospital in Perth. A 3-year-old boy was admitted this morning with a febrile illness. His mother has told the…

Pre-internship · middle twist

A registered nurse on night shift realises she has written a progress note about one patient in a different patient's paper medical record. The entry is factual…

Clinical rotations · common