292 Procedures: 70 Completing a death certificate

This is a very commonly tested finals OSCE station.

Note that you will probably be required to fill out death
certificates for at least two separate clinical scenarios in
a 5-minute OSCE station, so you should practise pacing
yourself accordingly in your study groups.

Listed below are three example OSCE scenarios to

get you started:
1. Mrs Winters is a 95-year-old lady who was admitted
7 days ago with a complete anterior circulation infarct.
She deteriorated after admission and developed an
aspiration pneumonia 2 days ago. Escherichia coli
was isolated from a sputum sample. She was treated
with antibiotics but subsequently went into cardiac
arrest and was not resuscitated as she had a DNAR
order. She had not been in good health for the previous
2 years and had a history of diabetes and Alzheimers
disease.

1A: Aspiration pneumonia caused by E. coli

1B: Complete anterior circulation territory cerebrovascular accident (not stroke)
1C: [BLANK]
2: Diabetes mellitus, Alzheimers disease

1A: Pulmonary embolism (not PE)

1B: [BLANK]
1C: [BLANK]
2: Antiphospholipid syndrome and multiple
myeloma. (NB. Antiphospholipid syndrome and all
malignancies contribute towards a procoagulant
state)
3. Mr Smith is a 65-year-old man who was admitted
10 days ago with an anteroseptal STEMI. He was recovering on the ward but developed sudden shortness of
breath and passed away from pulmonary oedema secondary to acute heart failure. He had a past medical
history of angina, diabetes and hypercholesterolaemia.
1A: Acute pulmonary oedema (NB. not acute
heart failure)
1B: Anteroseptal ST elevation myocardial infarction (not MI)
1C: Ischaemic heart disease
2: Hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes mellitus