Inappropriate Specialist Care
HENRY WILDE, M.D.*, CHUMSAK PRUKSAPONG, M.D.***, SURASAK TANEEPANICHSKUL, M.D.** SUKHIT PHAOSAVASDI, M.D.**, YUEN TANNIRANDORN, M.D.**,
Affiliation : * Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute, The Thai Red Cross Society, Bangkok 10330, ** Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkom University, Bangkok 10330, *** Department of Surgery, Police Hospital, Bangkok 10330, Thailand.
We would like to present several recent
real cases where inappropriate care may have been
rendered by a specialist.
Case 1.
An NGO sent a young man with no known
health problems to a local private hospital for a rou-
tine pre-employment physical examination. He was
seen by a physician in the OPD who examined him
following which he referred him to an ophthalmo-
logist and ENT specialist for the requested routine
vision and hearing test. The patient was also found
to have an asymptomatic hemorrhoidal tag for
which he was referred to a proctologist. The head of
the NGO was amazed but not amused since, in his
European home country, this examination would
have all been performed by one general practitioner.
Case 2.
One of our friends, the college educated
owner of a store near King Chulalongkorn Memorial
Hospital, has a 2-year old niece who developed anear ache. She took the child to a nearby private hos-
pital in the evening and asked to see an ear specia-
list. When told there was none available at that
time, she went to an other private hospital at the
other end of town where the child was seen and
treated by an ENT specialist. When asked why she
did not see a generalist or pediatrician, she looked
amazed and asked whether such a doctor should
know what the best treatment should be for an ear
infection.
Keywords : Specialist Care, Inappropriate
