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Admitted to the trauma service following severe injuries, a man is transferred to the ICU for mechanical ventilation. After 6 weeks of hospitalization, the patient's initial shoulder injury progressed to involve significantly limited mobility and pain, prompting concern that physical therapy should have been initiated earlier.

Interrupted during a telephone handoff, an ED physician, despite limited information, must treat a patient in respiratory arrest. The patient is stabilized and transferred to the ICU with a presumed diagnosis of aspiration pneumonia and septic shock. Later, ICU physicians obtain further history that leads to the correct diagnosis: pulmonary embolism.

Housestaff evaluate and admit a severely ill patient with lupus, suspect a viral syndrome, and do not initiate antibiotics. Despite discovery of the correct diagnosis in the morning by the attending, the patient dies.