02-25-2012, 08:51 PM
I came across a situation that was posed as such:
You are an attending at a hospital and you work Monday-Friday. You are treating a patient with a suspected TIA and want to run a CT-head to r/o bleeding. However, its nearly 5pm and your time to go home. You wait for the weekend attending to arrive but he is held up in traffic and won't be there till 6pm. You decide to tell the nurse who is treating the patient to have the weekend doctor order the CT-head. She forgets to tell the doctor and subsequently, the patient dies over the weekend.
How can you as an attending PREVENT this type of situation from occurring again?
(YOU MUST CHOOSE EITHER A or B)
A) Take very well written, clear and concise notes in the progress notes section of the patients
charts.
B) You must wait every single Friday no matter how late and give report verbally to the
attending that is coming to relieve you.
Thanks in advance!