Teaching Junior Medical Officers safe and effective prescribing.

Medication errors are an iatrogenic threat to patient safety, and recently graduated Junior Medical Officers (JMOs) are a common source of these errors. A ward-based, physician-led, small-group interactive teaching session was developed to improve JMOs competence in prescribing. The ability of JMOs to detect problems in mock medication charts before and after the teaching session was assessed, with the majority improving after the intervention, a result sustained on re-testing later in the year. The teaching sessions were well received by JMOs.