Very Important Patients: Interpersonal and Institutional Conflict
- DOI:
- 10.1093/med/9780190066420.003.0015
Emergency medicine physicians often are faced with administrative requests to provide preferential care for special patients. Based on a patient’s celebrity status or simply their status within a specific hospital system, accommodations often are made for deviations in triage, alternate care teams, or treatment plans. How should we balance the additional needs of the VIP to maintain a level of privacy afforded to the general patient population, with the ethical calling to treat all patients equally regardless of status?