Who is my doctor?

“It is unfortunately common for a patient to be caught up in a parade of tests, treatments and subspecialists with no physician clearly responsible for the whole problem.  Patients find themselves required to be their own physicians, making lonely decisions about high technology matters that doctors have trouble figuring out.  On occasion the patient is cared for by a “team” and cannot figure out the politics of responsibility and leadership – with the result that despite so many caregivers, the patient may be essentially alone at critical junctures.” From Chapter 5, The mysterious relationship between doctor and patient. In Cassell EJ: The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine (2^nd edition), Oxford University Press, 2004 page 65

David S. Smith, M.D., Ph.D.