Particularly in a small community, patients may want to avoid the social stigma of seeking mental health care by receiving it from their primary care physician—who may know them well enough to have some insights an unfamiliar specialist would not.
James Mills Jr., MD, a founder of emergency medicine, believed he could have greater impact on medical care for the poor in his city by giving up his practice and working in the emergency room full time.
A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
Writing a case study of a psychiatric patient may change the patient-physician dynamic even if the patient consents to be written about. And when the patient is a minor and consent must involve her parents, the process becomes even more complicated.
Putting the interest of patients first means attending to what the patient thinks is most important as well as treating medically significant symptoms and conditions.