Our data suggest that as many as 40,500 adult patients in an ICU in USA may die with an ICU misdiagnoses annually. Despite this, diagnostic errors receive relatively little attention and research funding. Future studies should seek to prospectively measure the prevalence and impact of diagnostic errors and potential strategies to reduce them.

Diagnostic errors in PICU/neonatal ICU populations are most commonly due to infection. Further research is needed to better quantify pediatric intensive care-related misdiagnosis and to define potential strategies to reduce their frequency or mitigate misdiagnosis-related harm.

Effective pain management for orthopedic major joint replacement is key to achieving earlier recovery, better functioning, and high rates of patient satisfaction. In an effort to decrease opioid dependency, practitioners are turning to multimodal pain management, which involves the use of multiple analgesic agents and techniques. In order to utilize this technique, a patient’s history of and preoperative consumption of medications to treat pain impacts the success of this regimen. Multimodal pain management involves the use of NSAIDS, acetaminophen, NMDA antagonists, gabapentin, serotonin inhibitors, regional techniques and opioids as needed. It is necessary for the nurse to understand the mechanism of pain and how the multimodal adjuncts target the pain response in order to benefit the patient’s perioperative course as well as their postoperative and discharge management.

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Identifying and educating students who have an interest and talent to be future educators is a challenge throughout academia, including nursing. The ideal scenario is to identify students early in their education and construct or scaffold a unique relationship between professor and student. The authors discuss a teaching assistant model, implemented in a nursing graduate program, which augments the education process while developing potential future nursing educators.