When specialists and GPs don't communicate, the patient suffers | Ranjana Srivastava

For all the talk about teamwork, there is a lack of communication between specialists and general practitioners which has a real downside for patients

My patient with an intellectual disability sits in a wheelchair, with enough capacity to mention the word “cancer” and to start crying, but not enough to follow the subsequent thread of conversation in which I tell him that there is no good treatment for his disease. As I struggle to keep my explanation simple and use gestures to describe toxicities like fatigue, hair loss and vomiting, he smiles. The smile illuminates his bright and youthful face and breaks my heart. His sister tells me she has devoted her whole life caring for him and only placed him in residential care when his physical needs grew beyond him. Here, she visits him every day.

Related: Why are so many GPs shutting up shop?

Hospital-based care often takes place in a vacuum, with the onus on the patient to convey complicated details to the GP

Related: The three questions that every patient should ask their doctor | Ranjana Srivastava

Continue reading... November 23, 2017 at 06:51AM