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Continuing Education
What is PSNet Continuing Education?
PSNet Continuing Education offerings include WebM&M Spotlight Cases and Commentaries, which are certified for Continuing Medical Education/ Continuing Education Units (CME/CEU) and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credit through the University of California, Davis (UCD) Health Office of Continuing Medical Education.
Each WebM&M Spotlight Case and Commentary is certified for the AMA PRA Category 1™ and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) through the American Board of Internal Medicine by the Office of Continuing Medical Education (OCME) at UCD, Health.
Learn more about how to earn credit from UCD
UCD's CME Security and Privacy
How does it work?
Earn CME or MOC credit and trainee certification by successfully completing quizzes based on Cases & Commentaries.
- Individuals have two attempts at each quiz to achieve a passing score of 80% or higher in order to earn credit.
- If you fail a quiz twice, the quiz will become unavailable, but the Spotlight case will be available as read-only.
- Spotlight Cases older than three years continue to be available as read-only, but their associated quizzes have been disabled.
- If you have questions specifically regarding University of California San Francisco (UCSF) CME/CEU, including registration, accreditation, or content, please email us at info@ocme.ucsf.edu.
New WebM&M Spotlight Cases
Leah Timbag, MD, MPH, Voltaire R. Sinigayan, MD, and Mithu Molla, MD, MBA
| September 27, 2023
This case describes the failure to identify a brewing abdominal process, which over the span of hours led to fulminant sepsis with... Read More
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Sarah Marshall, MD and Nina M. Boe, MD | August 30, 2023
A 31-year-old pregnant patient with type 1 diabetes on an insulin pump was hospitalized for euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). She... Read More
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Spotlight Case
CE/MOC
Theresa Duong, MD, Noelle Boctor, MD, and James Bourgeois, OD, MD | July 31, 2023
This case describes a 65-year-old man with alcohol use disorder who presented to a hospital 36 hours after his last... Read More
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Spotlight Case
CE/MOC
Elizabeth Gould, NP-C, CORLN, Kathleen M Carlsen, PA, Brooks T Kuhn, MD, MAS, and Jonathan Trask, RN | June 28, 2023
A 56-year-old man was admitted to the hospital and required mechanical ventilation due to COVID-19-related... Read More
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All WebM&M Spotlight Cases (18)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 18 WebM&M Spotlight Cases
Show: 20
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Stephanie Mueller, MD, MPH|
February 1, 2019
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To transfer a man with possible sepsis to a hospital with subspecialty and critical care, a physician was unaware of a formal protocol and called a colleague at the academic medical center. The colleague secured a bed, and the patient was sent over. However, neither clinical data nor the details of the patient's current condition were transmitted to the hospital's transfer center, and the receiving physician booked a general ward bed rather than an ICU bed. When the patient arrived, his mentation was altered and breathing was rapid. The nurse called the rapid response team, but the patient went into cardiac arrest.
Timothy R. Kreider, MD, PhD, and John Q. Young, MD, MPP, PhD|
January 1, 2019
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A woman with a history of psychiatric illness presented to the emergency department with agitation, hallucinations, tachycardia, and transient hypoxia. The consulting psychiatric resident attributed the tachycardia and hypoxia to her underlying agitation and admitted her to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Over the next few days, her tachycardia persisted and continued to be attributed to her psychiatric disease. On hospital day 5, the patient was found unresponsive and febrile, with worsening tachycardia, tachypnea, and hypoxia; she had diffuse myoclonus and increased muscle tone. She was transferred to the ICU of the hospital, where a chest CT scan revealed bilateral pulmonary emboli (explaining the tachycardia and hypoxia), and clinicians also diagnosed neuroleptic malignant syndrome (a rare and life-threatening reaction to some psychiatric medications).
Anne M. Turner, MD, MLIS, MPH|
October 1, 2017
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A Spanish-speaking woman presented to an urgent care clinic complaining of headache and worsening dizziness, for which the treating clinician ordered an MRI. When the results came in with no concerning findings later that day, the provider used Google Translate to write a letter informing the patient of the results. The patient interpreted the letter to mean that the results were concerning. This miscommunication led to patient distress and extra visits to both urgent care and the emergency department.
The Risks of Absent Interoperability: Medication-Induced Hemolysis in a Patient With a Known Allergy
Jacob Reider, MD|
October 1, 2015
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After leaving Hospital X against medical advice, a man with paraplegia presented to the emergency department of Hospital Y with pain and fever. The patient was diagnosed with sepsis and admitted to Hospital Y for management. In the night, the nurse found the patient unresponsive and called a code blue. The patient was resuscitated and transferred to the ICU, where physicians determined that the arrest was due to acute rupturing of his red blood cells (hemolysis), presumably caused by a reaction to the antibiotic. Later that day, the patient's records arrived from three hospitals where he had been treated recently. One record noted that he had previously experienced a life-threatening allergic reaction to the antibiotic, which was new information for the providers at Hospital Y.
John D. Halamka, MD, MS, and Deven McGraw, JD, MPH, LLM|
August 21, 2015
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A hospitalized patient with advanced dementia was to undergo a brain MRI as part of a diagnostic workup for altered mental status. Hospital policy dictated that signout documentation include only patients' initials rather than more identifiable information such as full name or birth date. In this case, the patient requiring the brain MRI had the same initials as another patient on the same unit with severe cognitive impairment from a traumatic brain injury. The cross-covering resident mixed up the two patients and placed the MRI order in the wrong chart. Because the order for a "brain MRI to evaluate worsening cognitive function" could apply to either patient, neither the bedside nurse nor radiologist noticed the error.
Urmimala Sarkar, MD, MPH|
October 1, 2013
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Although the mother of a child, born male who identified as and expressed externally as a girl, had alerted the clinic of the child's preferred name when making the appointment, the medical staff called for the patient in the waiting room using her legal (masculine) name.
Seth J. Bokser, MD, MPH|
March 1, 2013
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A triage nurse incorrectly recorded a toddler's weight as 25 kg, instead of 25 lbs, which led to an error in calculating the dosage for antibiotics. She entered the inaccurate weight into the electronic medical record, and none of the other providers who saw the child caught the error.
Carlton R. Moore, MD, MS|
August 1, 2012
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Drawn on a Thursday, basic labs for a 10-year-old girl came back over the weekend showing a high glucose level, but neither the covering physician nor the primary pediatrician saw the results until the patient's mother called on Monday. Upon return to the clinic for follow-up, the child's glucose level was dangerously high and urinalysis showed early signs of diabetic ketoacidosis.
Jeffrey H. Barsuk, MD, MS|
July 1, 2012
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Following gallbladder removal, a patient presented with abdominal pain and fluid in her abdomen. The admitting team, comprised of a second-year resident and intern, decided to perform a paracentesis (fluid removal) without supervision. The patient had a complication necessitating emergency surgery and an ICU stay.
James E. Sabin, MD|
December 1, 2009
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A man with a history of IV drug use is admitted to the hospital and found to have an epidural abscess with surrounding osteomyelitis. Although the treatment plan required weeks of IV antibiotics, the patient (who fought with the nursing staff and threatened to leave against medical advice [AMA]) was discharged after 2 weeks on oral antibiotics. His condition worsened, and he returned 3 weeks later, but he ultimately left AMA and was lost to follow-up.
