ERs are a haven for defensive medicine, understandably so. Flea worries that some patients will think the overtesting and overtreatment performed in ERs is standard of care:
Here’s the problem: Overuse of emergency services for non-emergent complaints educates parents and their children that non-emergent conditions require emergency level of care. Thus when a toddler in my practice goes to the E.D. with cold symptoms and gets an I.V. (true story from last night), the parents learn that colds deserve I.V.’s.
Related posts:
- Should emergency departments handle more urgent care cases?
- Cover your ass, defensive medicine
- CBS Evening News, defensive medicine, and me
- Defensive medicine is aggressive
- How to survive heart disease requiring quintuple bypass surgery, did continuity of care care help?
- Some lawyers say defensive medicine isn’t real, but this doctor shows us otherwise
- Defensive medicine op-ed reaction
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{ 1 comment }
Bingo.
Ex ER doc
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