Situational Nursing Mock Interview
Practice 50 Situational Nursing interview questions covering clinical judgment, patient safety, and critical response scenarios.
Question 3 of 50
You are conducting intake on a patient who was just seen at your facility earlier in the week. After you enter the patient's vital signs, you see their medication list, which was updated earlier in the week. Tell me how you proceed.
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Kelly Burlison is an experienced healthcare and quality measurement professional with experience interviewing in the healthcare field focusing on IT.
Because patient medications can change very quickly, even over a few days, it is important that nurses verify current medications for every patient at the beginning of every patient visit. If a patient's medication list is not verified and accurately updated, they are at risk of being prescribed a new medication that could interfere with one they are taking. If the nurse does not verify and update the patient medication list, the prescribing provider will not be aware of undocumented medications and will not be able to avoid prescribing errors. The interviewer is asking this question to assess whether or not the candidate understands that medication must be reviewed and verified with the patient or a caregiver during each encounter. To effectively answer this question, the candidate should indicate that they would review and verify the medications with the patient. A more successful answer to this question could include an example of how the candidate has dealt with a similar situation in the past, learned from a mistake that was made because they did not verify the medication, or spearheaded a policy change at their facility to ensure medications are verified during each patient visit.
Kelly Burlison is an experienced healthcare and quality measurement professional with experience interviewing in the healthcare field focusing on IT.
"I would review and verify the patient's medication with them again, even though they were just seen in the facility a few days prior. It is too risky to assume that the patient's medications have not changed, as the provider may prescribe a medication that interferes with something the patient is taking that is not documented. Unfortunately, I had to learn this lesson the hard way early in my career. It was a similar situation, where a patient had just been seen a few days earlier, and I assumed their medication list was the same, so I did not ask about it. The next day, I learned that the patient had a bad reaction due to a medication interaction from something they were taking that wasn't documented and a new medication that was prescribed by the doctor during the appointment the previous day. Luckily, the patient was okay, but after this happened, failing to verify medications was a mistake I only had to make once."
"When when reviewing any kind of intake record with the patient, it's important to read to the patient what is already in our record, rather than just saying 'Has anything changed since your last visit?' We can't assume the patient knows what is written in their electronic medical record, or that everything was documented completely the last time. Therefore, after I entered the patient's vital signs, I say to the patient, 'Okay, now we're going to update your medication list.' I would read the list to the patient to have her confirm each medication/dose and make any changes as needed. Then I would ask if she is on any additional medication."
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