MS&E 203 · Fall 2026

Exercise 2B: Judge the Judge

Version B. Six minutes. Check whether each note is safe to sign, see whether the model agrees, then try to break it.

Fictional Visit

Fictional practice data

This visit is invented and simplified for teaching. It is not clinical guidance. Never paste real patient information into an unapproved model.

Dr. Patel: What brings you in today?

Ms. Rivera: Follow-up for my blood pressure. Honestly, I stopped the lisinopril about two weeks ago. It made me dizzy when I stood up.

Dr. Patel: Thanks for telling me. Any dizziness since you stopped?

Ms. Rivera: No, it went away.

Dr. Patel: Your blood pressure today is 148 over 92. Let's try a different medicine. I'll start amlodipine, 5 milligrams once a day.

Ana (daughter): Should she keep checking it at home?

Dr. Patel: Yes. Please log it each morning and send me the readings through the portal in two weeks.

Ms. Rivera: Can I get my flu shot today?

Dr. Patel: Yes, the nurse will give it before you leave. We'll decide at your next visit whether to adjust the dose.

Two Draft Notes

Note 1

Subjective: Hypertension follow-up. Reports dizziness on standing. Daughter present and asked about home monitoring.

Objective: BP 148/92.

Medications:

Plan:

Immunizations: Influenza vaccine given today.

Note 2

Subjective: Hypertension follow-up. Stopped lisinopril about two weeks ago because of dizziness on standing; dizziness has resolved since stopping.

Objective: BP 148/92.

Plan:

What Counts as Critical

A critical error blocks the note, however complete the rest is: anything invented or contradicted about a medication, dose, plan, or decision, or a medication change recorded without its direction. A missing item alone is major, not critical.

As a group, decide whether each note is acceptable to sign.

Ask a Model

Open Stanford AI Playground, pick a model, and write down its name and version. Start a new chat for every run, so no one's chat history influences the answer. Paste the fictional visit and one note, followed by:

You are checking one draft clinical note against the visit transcript before a physician signs it. A critical error is anything invented or contradicted about a medication, dose, plan, or decision, or a medication change recorded without its direction. A missing item alone is not critical. Reply in exactly two lines:

ISSUE: quote the critical error from the note, or "none"

VERDICT: PASS (no critical error) or FAIL

Run it once for each note, each in a new chat. Expected: the shorter note PASS, the longer note FAIL.

Break the Judge

If the judge got both notes right, try to break it. Start from a copy of the note it passed and change one phrase at a time, rerunning in a new chat after each change:

Ideas to try: change a dose or a frequency; credit the daughter's words to Ms. Rivera; turn "decide at the next visit" into a firm plan; change when something happened; bury the error in longer, more polished text; swap a lay term for a technical one, or the reverse.

If the judge got a note wrong, fix it instead: change the prompt, not the note, until it gets both notes right, and write down what you changed.

Record:

Then report it in the debrief.

If you finish early: rerun your best break with "Answer with one word: PASS or FAIL." in place of the two-line format. Did the verdict change?

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