Hey awesomites, I'm Jay, and I'm your new Medicowesome contributor! yayy!! :) And today we are going to talk about Referrals. This is another important ethical
responsibility of a physician.
A physician’s Central responsibility is WELFARE OF THE
PATIENT, and that means, Physician should work for the best interest of the
patient not him/herself.
Referral simply means that, when we reach the boundaries
of our competence, we should hand our patient to a more competent physician. Keeping
a patient with ourselves to hide our incompetency or to earn more money is a
huge NO-NO!!!
We shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for help from our colleagues,
and we shouldn’t be continuing to treat a patient, if we cannot give him/her a
fruitful therapy as our boundary of competency has reached. That’s when we should
write a LETTER OF REFFERAL to a Consultant(BritE)/Attending(AmE) Physician or
to another colleague with a broader knowledge or idea of the subject.