Medical "Curbside" Consultations:Are There Problems with It?

If you didn't already know, what is called in the medical profession "curbside consultations" are going onevery day and really no standards of practice have been set for this behavior. "Curbside Consultation" is simply a brief meeting between two doctors, perhaps in a hallway of a hospital or at the same dining table and one doctor is taking care of a puzzling case of a sick patient and asks the other doctor who isn't involved with the care of that patient to give some advice about what to do next in terms of workup, diagnosis or treatment. Often the requesting doctor is one in general medicine and the other is a specialist but may be just another general physician who has had a similar case. In this brief conversation, the requesting doctor will attempt to present some of the facts (history, physical findings and labs) that the doctor can recall and present in a few minutes or less and then will wait for advice and suggestions made by the "curbside consultant" doctor.The patient is usually unidentified and the case is usually unknown by the "consultant". This activity is considered and performed as a "professional courtesy", a friendly and perhaps expected professional communication between two doctors, in which the "consultant" is not providing the advice for any fee and has no intent to provide direct management to the patient under discussion and a consultation about which the patient is unaware and may not be told later. This is in contrast to a formal consultation where...
Source: Bioethics Discussion Blog - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs