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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 (190)
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Gain access to quizzes and start earning CME, CEU, or Trainee certification.
Displaying 51 - 60 of 190 WebM&M Spotlight Cases
Show: 20
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David J. Lucier, MD, MBA, MPH, and Jeffrey L. Greenwald, MD|
September 1, 2018
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An older woman with lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain was admitted to the hospital and found to have Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (PJP pneumonia), invasive pulmonary aspergillus, diffuse myopathy, and gastrointestinal bleeding. Medication reconciliation revealed that she had been prescribed a high dose of dexamethasone to reduce the brain swelling associated with the cancer. Although the intention had been to taper the steroids after she received radiotherapy for her brain metastases, the corticosteroids were never tapered, and she continued to take high-dose steroids for more than 2 months. Physicians believed that all of her acute issues were a result of the mistakenly high dose of the steroids.
Jeffrey Jim, MD, MPHS|
August 1, 2018
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An older man with multiple medical conditions and an extensive smoking history was admitted to the hospital with worsening shortness of breath. He underwent transthoracic echocardiogram, which demonstrated severe aortic stenosis. The cardiology team recommended cardiac catheterization, but the interventional cardiologist could not advance the catheter and an aortogram revealed an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) measuring 9 cm in diameter. Despite annual visits to his primary care physician, he had never undergone screening ultrasound to assess for presence of an AAA. The patient was sent emergently for surgical repair but had a complicated surgical course.
Resa E. Lewiss, MD|
July 1, 2018
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After an emergency department (ED) physician interpreted results of a point-of-care ultrasound as showing stable low ejection fraction, some volume overload, and a mechanical mitral valve in place without regurgitation for a man with a history of congestive heart failure, end-stage renal disease, and mechanical mitral valve replacement who presented with shortness of breath, the patient was admitted with a presumed diagnosis of volume overload. Reassured by the ED physician's interpretation of the ultrasound, the hospitalist ordered no further cardiac testing. The patient underwent hemodialysis, felt better, and was discharged. Less than 12 hours later, the patient returned critically ill and in cardiogenic shock. An emergency transthoracic echocardiogram found a thrombosed mitral valve, which had led to acute mitral stenosis and cardiogenic shock.
A. Clinton MacKinney, MD, MS, and Nicholas M. Mohr, MD, MS|
June 1, 2018
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After presenting to a rural emergency department with chest pain, a man with a history of diabetes awaited admission to the hospital. The off-site admitting internist ordered aspirin and a heparin drip, but neither medication was administered. On transfer to the acute care unit 2 hours later, the patient was diaphoretic, somnolent, tachycardic, and borderline hypotensive. The nurse called the internist and realized the heparin drip had never been started. When she went to administer it, the patient was unresponsive, hypotensive, and bradycardic. She called a code blue.
Eric Poon, MD, MPH|
May 1, 2018
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An elderly man with a history of giant cell arteritis (GCA) presented to the rheumatology clinic with recurrent headaches one month after stopping steroids. A blood test revealed that his C-reactive protein was elevated, suggesting increased inflammation and a flare of his GCA. However, his rheumatologist was out of town and did not receive the test result. Although the covering physician saw the result, she relayed just the patient's last name without the medical record number. Because the primary rheumatologist had another patient with the same last name, GCA, and a normal CRP, follow-up with the correct patient was delayed until his next set of blood tests.
Leah S. Karliner, MD, MAS|
April 1, 2018
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Although the electronic health record noted that a woman required a Spanish interpreter to communicate with providers, no in-person interpreter was booked in advance. A non–Spanish-speaking physician attempted to use the clinic's phone interpreter services to communicate with the patient, but poor reception prevented the interpreter and patient from hearing each other. The patient called her husband, but he was unavailable. Eventually, a Spanish-speaking medical assistant was able to interpret for the visit. Fortunately, the physician was able to determine that the patient required further cardiac testing before proceeding with a planned elective surgery.
Anna Parks, MD, and Margaret C. Fang, MD, MPH |
March 1, 2018
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One day after reading only the first line of a final ultrasound result (which stated that the patient had a thrombosis), an intern reported to the ICU team that the patient had a DVT. Because she had postoperative bleeding, the team elected to place an inferior vena cava (IVC) filter rather than administer anticoagulants to prevent a pulmonary embolism (PE). The next week, a new ICU team discussed the care plan and questioned the IVC filter. The senior resident reviewed the radiology records and found the ultrasound report actually stated the thrombosis was in a superficial vein with low risk for PE, which meant that the correct step in management of this patient's thrombosis should have been surveillance.
Amy J. Starmer, MD, MPH, and Christopher P. Landrigan, MD, MPH |
February 1, 2018
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Admitted with an intracranial mass and hemorrhage, a woman with atrial fibrillation had been stable for several days when the ICU team and neurosurgeon decided that the benefits of low-dose DVT prophylaxis would outweigh the risk of serious bleeding. However, no dose or route of administration was specified, and the overnight resident ordered full-dose (rather than the prophylactic dose) anticoagulation. The hemorrhage grew and brain compression worsened, leaving the patient with no chance for meaningful recovery.
Roger Chou, MD|
January 1, 2018
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A woman who had been taking naltrexone to treat alcohol use disorder was discharged to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) on opioids for pain following spinal fusion surgery. Although her naltrexone was held at the hospital in anticipation of starting opioids for pain control, the clinician performing medication reconciliation at the SNF overrode the drug–drug interaction alert and restarted the naltrexone. The SNF providers did not realize that the naltrexone blocked the pain-relieving effect of the opioids.
Craig A. Umscheid, MD, MSCE; John D. McGreevey, III, MD; and S. Ryan Greysen, MD, MHS, MA|
December 1, 2017
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Found unconscious at home, an older woman with advanced dementia and end-stage renal disease was resuscitated in the field and taken to the emergency department, where she was registered with a temporary medical record number. Once her actual medical record was identified, her DNR/DNI status was identified. After recognizing this and having discussions with the family, she was transitioned to comfort care and died a few hours later. Two months later, the clinic called the patient's home with an appointment reminder. The primary care physician had not been contacted about the patient's hospitalization and the electronic record system had not listed the patient as deceased.
