ER for life Posted May 29, 2013 Share Posted May 29, 2013 I am an ER PA that works with one solo doc at a time. One of our docs has a son that has chronic flank pain due to recurrent renal stones. His case is pretty severe and has required several open procedures to treat. The complicated situation that continues to come up is that the son has come into our ED fairly regularly (2 visits per month for past 6 months) for breakthrough pain control. These visits almost always occur while the doc, his dad, is working. The doc asks that one of the PAs "officially" sees his son, but chooses to dictate the treatment that the son gets. This treatment often includes IV narcotics, toradol, and zofran. Every time, the PA obliges to avoid confrontation and to not come off as insensitive. I am sensitive to this issue, but I have a big problem treating the son while his dad is working as my supervising doc. I talked to our ED director who will address the issue. Any thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MedicinePower Posted May 29, 2013 Share Posted May 29, 2013 This is a tough issue. I think it presents a big problem when the father/physician wants a course of treatment that is inappropriate and not indicated. If the PA agrees that the course is correct and appropriate based upon the H&P then it isn't the worst problem. It's when the PA's treatment plan and the father/physician's treatment plan are wildly different that it becomes a major issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator True Anomaly Posted May 29, 2013 Moderator Share Posted May 29, 2013 Yeesh, that's quite the unique situation. It's obviously a bit hard when you're doing the "dual coverage" thing with you and one doc basically alternating patients to avoid seeing the patient. If I for some reason found myself in that situation, I'd probably go through with it as well, but documenting thoroughly that the treatment plan was discussed every step of the way with the supervising doc. Even if he's not "officially" treating his son....he basically still is. You should always document when the doc needs to be pulled into a situation to discuss treatments or diagnostics, and this is one situation I'd be sure it's all over the chart. I'm assuming your supervising doc is different than the ED director doc? And is your group set up where you may have one "primary supervising doc" but any of the ED physicians can also act as a "supervising doc" in substitute? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterallsummer Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 Do you personally agree with the treatment plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.