Multiple Questions Per Patient

Posted by Anthony Lee Nov 1, 2008

When a patient feels sick or needs a checkup, he or she goes to a personal doctor in a clinic who addresses all concerns. Often, medical care is this simple. What happens, though, when a patient goes to a hospital for a more pressing issue? Naturally, he or she first enters the emergency department. An emergency physician asks the patient a series of questions and performs a physical examination. If the patient needs to be hospitalized, he or she is taken to a hospital bed and is cared for by a hospital physician, who performs the same process of taking a history and performing a physical exam. Now, if the patient needs a specialist physician on board, such as a surgeon, that doctor will come by to do the same thing.

Why do multiple doctors asks the same questions to one patient? As tedious as it can be for the patient, there are safety advantages. On occasion, it is possible for the first doctor to miss an important clinical detail, due to either negligence or limiting circumstances (e.g., patient is unconscious), and it helps to have subsequent doctors confirm existing details and uncover new ones. Also, the subsequent doctors have a sense of security when they get the information firsthand. Obviously, relying only on the first doctor's information is not a good idea.

I say this because I have, in the past, met patients who expressed frustration with being asked the same things multiple times. I do understand that. Still, given the rationale behind it, receiving the best care may depend on cooperation with all physicians involved.