Ask the expert: What are the pitfalls of physicians treating family members?

Physicians must be taught the dangers of treating family members. Many times, physicians providing this treatment do so outside of their expertise, says R. Dean White, DDS, MS, a medical staff consultant in Dallas/Fort Worth.
When treating patients who are family, one must consider that patients might not share all of the details of their health problem with the physician, particularly if it is of an intimate nature. Children, in particular, are at greater risk because they might be afraid to tell daddy how they feel.
Physicians also often fail to maintain adequate medical ­records when treating themselves or their families, which puts patients at risk when they seek future treatment from other physicians. “Most insurance companies wouldn’t pay for it, and you couldn’t defend it to a peer,” White says.
Finally, in addition to patient risk, there is legal and emotional risk for the physician. If a physician performs open-heart surgery on his mother and something goes wrong, not only will he have to live with the guilt for the rest of his life and face an angry and disappointed family, but he may also be at increased legal risk. A plaintiff’s attorney could easily argue that the physician’s emotional attachment to his mother caused him to make poor judgments during the open heart-surgery.

This week’s question and answer are fromMedical Staff Briefings, HCPro, Inc.’s monthly newsletter for medical staff leaders.