November 10th, 2009 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Opinion
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When a patient decides they are leaving against medical advice what responsibility does the physician have to their care? When I was a resident in training, and even early on in my position as a hospitalist, I would get a call from the nurse that Mrs Smith was demanding to leave the hospital against medical advice. I would tell the nurse “Fine. Let her go. I’m not her father.” I would tell the nurse to discharge Mrs Smith with no medications and leave it up to them to find follow up.
I would suspect this is a prevalent attitude for many hospital and emergency based physicians. I’ve seen it over and over again. And I still see it today. Many doctors and nurses feel obliged to let grown men and women make poor decisions. However, being a grown man or woman able to make poor decisions is apparently not enough to keep a doctor for being sued and losing that lawsuit because a patient chose to make poor decisions. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at A Happy Hospitalist*
November 8th, 2009 by DrEdwinLeap in Better Health Network, True Stories
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The call schedule is hidden somewhere inside!
Dictation:
‘The patient was seen in the emergency department by Dr. Niemans, who is the acting hospitalist on call for Dr. Whitman’s group, who usually admit for the patient’s actual primary care provider, Emily Knight, PA, who works for Dr. Robelo, who no longer takes call, but admits his patients to the hospitalist.
Because the patient has COPD and an acute left-lower-lobe pneumonia, pulmonology was consulted. However, no pulmonologist is available this weekend. Pulmonary is being covered by Dr. Albertson, pulmonologist in the neighboring city. I spoke with Dr. Albertson about this and he told me he wasn’t taking call for our patients, and why did people keep bothering him.
The patient’s cardiologist, Dr. Rease, is being covered by Dr. James. I spoke to Edgar, PA for Dr. James who said that as of 7am, Dr. James was trading call with Dr. Housefield while Dr. James went to his son’s soccer game, but if I had any questions I should call Dr. Housefield’s Nurse Practitioner Michael, who would be rounding for Dr. Housefield, Dr. James and Dr. Josefson, at least until soccer was over or something bad happened. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
