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Curbside Consults

BY Linda S. Crawford
July 29, 2010

It happens thousands of times a day: A physician is stopped in the hallway of a hospital or gets a phone call or e-mail asking for informal advice about a problem from a fellow physician. They all do it. Physicians offer their advice in these situations because it is helpful to their colleagues and to the patients being cared for. The question is, in today's climate of increasing concern about medical malpractice liability, is it safe for a doctor to give advice when asked by a treating physician?

Why They Do It

Several studies have looked at the medical care field's informal consultation tradition. In a study of 705 Massachusetts medical practitioners, (“Physicians' Experiences and Beliefs Regarding Informal Consultation,” JAMA Sept. 9, 1998-Vol. 20, No. 10), both generalist and specialist physicians said they requested information from sub specialists most often. Recent graduates, and physicians who were not board certified, sought informal consultations. The rationale stated for seeking informal consultations was to gather information, not avoid fees or gain protection from malpractice litigation. As we might expect, generalists were more likely to believe that informal consultations improved the quality of care, while specialists worried that the information they were receiving might be incomplete or inaccurate, and therefore the advice given might not be complete. Specialists were also more concerned about the risk of malpractice litigation than the generalists.

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