Nicholas Freudenberg, MD and Peter M. Yellowlees, MBBS, MD
Ideally, telepsychiatry treatment should include collaboration with patients’ primary care physicians. One way to facilitate the collaboration is for patients to have videoconference appointments with their psychiatrists in the primary care clinic.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.
Physicians should understand the limits of patient confidentiality and the importance of taking a thorough sexual history in the diagnosis and management of a patient with an STD.