scenario: a stroke patient in critical condition in the hospital requests attending physician to consult with a GI dr about the onset of new symptoms after undergoing a feeding tube placement procedure. The attending and nurse tell the patient and family that such a consult with occur. In actuality, the Attending never seeks consult and patient rapidly deteriorates.
question - are there situations in which the patient’s request for a consult can be ignored by the attending? Thanks in advance!
The scenario and question don’t match. The scenario involves deception, which is clearly unethical.
The question asks of a patient request can be “ignored”. What do you mean by that?
If you mean just unacknowledged, I’d hope that would only arise from a misunderstanding, which could be cleared up. If on the other hand the request is actively ignored, then, yes, I’d say that is not “best practice” and approaches unethical, but depending on the specific circumstances, that might be too strong (or maybe too weak) a word.
If by “ignored” you mean simply not complied with, then it may be that in the medical opinion of the physician, a consult is not needed. A difference of opinion is not unethical. Again, I’d hope that the physician would adequately explain such a difference opinion, or at least make a good faith attempt to. Failure to do so wouldn’t necessarily be unethical, but I would definitely not consider it “best practice”.
This ignore the fact that the patient in question (a stroke patient in critical condition) would have extreme difficulty communicating at all, let alone making a specific and unambiguous request.