Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
That's why there are practice guidelines. Experts look at the research and come up with practice recommendations. You document your reasoning in your note, pointing out why you believe that your decision was in the best interest of the patient.
Psychiatrists have to make life-and-death decisions all the time in hospitalizing or not hospitalizing suicidal patients. It's impossible to make correct decisions all the time, the best they can is make an informed decision and document why they believe the decision they made was the best for the patient.
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Exactly. But you're speaking from the best malpractice environment in the country. Admittedly, my state's not too bad either, but I came from a bad state--and it was hell. You just get forced into bad care.
And we both know that following practice guidelines (which don't always exist--as you likely know with suicide risk assessment) doesn't offer complete protection. And that's assuming they both exist and are uniform--rarely the case.