A nurse asks a doctor about medication for a patient in a hospital. The doctor accidentally tells the nurse to give the patient the wrong medication, and the nurse follows the doctor’s orders. Which type of medical error has occurred?

The patient was instructed to receive the wrong medication, so this is a medication error. The error occurred when the doctor gave the incorrect medication order, even though the nurse followed that order. It is not a diagnostic error, which involves incorrectly identifying a condition, or equipment failure.

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