Emergency Medicine Pharmacy Sample Examination Items

These sample examination items are made available by BPS for the purposes of familiarizing certification candidates and other stakeholders with the structure and format of BPS certification examinations. This is not meant for use as a self-assessment. Performance on any of these items does not correlate with performance on the actual examination.

The content of these examples is meant to be illustrative of actual examination items, but these items do not appear on the certification examination and are not meant to identify the scope of the examination. For a more comprehensive indication of the scope of each certification examination, please refer to the Exam Content Outline for each specialty area.

Examination items are in multiple-choice format. The great majority of examination items are multiple-choice with a single response from among four options. Some examinations may include a small percentage of items that require selection of multiple (three or four) responses from among a larger set of available (up to eight) options. Examinations items may also be supplemented by an image.

A 10-year-old (35 kg) presents with supraventricular tachycardia. The patient is alert and oriented to person, place, and time.

Vital signs are as follows:

BP	98/63 mm Hg
HR	210 bpm
RR	15 rpm

What medication should be initiated?

Adenosine 3.5 mg intravenous bolus

Adenosine 6 mg intravenous bolus

Amiodarone 87.5 mg intravenous piggyback

Amiodarone 150 mg intravenous piggyback

Correct!

Incorrect!

A 65-year-old patient presents to the emergency department with altered mental status. Past medical history includes diabetes mellitus, seizure disorder, and hypertension.

Current medications are:

Carbamazepine	200 mg orally twice daily
Insulin detemir	15 units subcutaneously twice daily
Metformin	500 mg orally twice daily
Quinapril	20 mg orally daily

Laboratory values include:

Na	119 mEq/L
K	4.2 mEq/L
Cl	101 mEq/L
BUN	15 mg/dL
Blood Glucose	109 mg/dL
SCr	1.14 mg/dL
HCO₃^-	23 mEq/L

Vital signs include:

BP	126/84 mm Hg
HR	82 bpm
RR	14 rpm
SpO₂	99%

Which medication is most likely contributing to the patient's clinical presentation?

Carbamazepine

Insulin

Metformin

Quinapril

Correct!

Incorrect!

A 68-year-old patient presents to the emergency department reporting crushing chest pain for the past 30 minutes. The 12-lead ECG shows an inferior ST-elevation MI.

The patient's vital signs are:

BP	92/60 mm Hg
HR	125 bpm
RR	20 rpm

The patient is going for percutaneous coronary intervention emergently. In addition to aspirin 324 mg, which medication is most appropriate to administer to this patient?

Clopidogrel 600 mg orally

Heparin 40 units/kg intravenous push

Metoprolol 5 mg intravenously

Nitroglycerin intravenous infusion

Correct!

Incorrect!

An emergency medicine pharmacist is implementing a treatment protocol for intravenous sub-dissociative dose ketamine to be used as an alternative to opioids for acute pain in the emergency department. Which approach is most appropriate regarding a monitoring plan for patients who qualify for this treatment protocol?

Patients do not require any monitoring.

Patients should be monitored using the same protocols as the facility utilizes for other analgesic agents.

Patients should be monitored using the same protocols as the facility utilizes for procedural sedation.

Patients should be observed in the emergency department for at least 6 hours following administration.

Correct!

Incorrect!

An 11-year-old patient is being discharged with a parent after experiencing an anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting. Which counseling technique should the pharmacist use regarding a new prescription for an epinephrine autoinjector?

Counsel the patient aside from the parent and provide written medication use instructions to the parent.

Counsel the patient directly with the parent in the room to ensure that both understand how and when to use the medication.

Instruct the parent separately from the patient on how to use the autoinjector.

Instruct the parent to fill the medication at a community pharmacy where a pharmacist will review medication administration instructions at that time.

Correct!

Incorrect!

A pharmacist responds to a stroke alert for a 87-year-old man (100 kg) who was last known well 3 1/2 hours ago. Blood pressure is 175/102 mm Hg and blood glucose is 56 mg/dL. A non-contrast head CT shows no hemorrhage. A family member at the bedside provides a list of the patient's medications and reports adherence.

Current medications are:

Aspirin	81 mg daily
Metoprolol tartrate	25 mg twice daily
Lisinopril	20 mg daily
Vitamin D	2,000 units daily
Rivaroxaban	20 mg daily with dinner

Which patient information is a contraindication to thrombolytic therapy?

Age

Current blood pressure

Glucose level

Rivaroxaban

Correct!

Incorrect!

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Emergency Medicine Pharmacy Sample Questions

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