Letters to the Editor

In your October issue ["Clinical Trials: Improving Patient Care and Our Ability to Provide It"], there are interesting and related articles concerning healthcare and practices in our area. Though initially seeming not directly related, the article on "Personalized Medicine" and the one dealing with "Who's in Charge?" speak to what I perceive as growing problems as we rush to government health control.

Too many private practitioners, particularly in family practice and internal medicine, are becoming triage specialists. They see their panel of patients, and, if care beyond prescriptions is needed, refer the "consumer" to another office or to a (so-called) "hospitalist."

If that physician shares his cover with other doctors, then the chain of patient custody stretches far too thin and, so often, breaks.

The "Lesson From Litigation" taught in that article should not have been a CPC on epidural abscesses but on maintaining close doctor-patient contact, even if the patient's primary care has been taken over by another doctor.

Primary care physicians should be warned that their responsibilities to their patient do not end upon referral!

Sincerely,
Lawrence Adler, MD, JD

San Diego Physician Response

SDCMS welcomes comments from our physician readers who are not SDCMS-CMA members [email Editor@SDCMS.org]. Moreover, we would welcome and encourage nonmember physicians to become part of the solution by becoming SDCMS-CMA members, i.e., by using their beliefs and talents to effect change rather than simply comment on it.