title: Safe prescribing: an educational intervention for medical students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Errors in handwritten medication orders are common and can result in patient harm. We evaluated an intervention for increasing safe prescribing by medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a pre-post evaluation to evaluate a brief educational intervention to increase safe prescribing by medical students. Two 1-hr, small-group, interactive educational sessions for 3rd-year medical students were held 2 weeks apart at Washington University in St. Louis. Prescribing errors were measured with a verbal transcription test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-eight students participated. Following the intervention, the average number of error-free orders in the 10-order test increased 5-fold from 0.82 per student to 4.54 per student, and the average number of errors and dangerous errors per student decreased from 13.96 to 7.36 (p < .0001) and from 4.75 to 2.68 (p < .0001), respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  After a brief interactive educational intervention for medical students, the frequency of error-free handwritten orders increased, and prescribing errors decreased. Additional training may be required to further improve and maintain safe prescribing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine , St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. jgarbutt@im.wustl.edu
authors.forename: Jane M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Garbutt
authors.forename: Thomas M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: DeFer
authors.forename: Gabrielle
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Highstein
authors.forename: Candace
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McNaughton
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Milligan
authors.forename: Victoria F
authors.initials: VF
authors.lastname: Fraser
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D004501:Education, Medical; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D013337:Students, Medical