Informal (Hallway) medical consultation in orthopedics-is it as common as it seems?

摘要

Informal (hallway) medical consultation is an integral part of the physician's work. As musculoskeletal complaints are very common, orthopedic surgeons stand in the frontline of this practice. Many of these consultations are poorly, if at all, documented, thus imposing a potential medical danger to the patient and a medicolegal danger to the surgeon. We conducted this first study to examine whether this practice is common among the orthopedic surgeons in university hospital.