Getting Help From Medical Colleagues

Your professional colleagues are a rich source of information, especially for treating medical problems under local conditions. Electronic mail makes it easy to seek opinions from other physicians in your own community or around the world. This link suggests ideas for exchanging information with your colleagues.

Medical colleagues are a rich source of information, particularly for managing a problem under local conditions. Physicians frequently share experiences with their peers, both formally and informally. This page discusses ways to use your peers as an information source, and help them in return.

Opinion Leaders
These are not just people who have strong opinions. They are the ones that others seek out to ask their opinion. This may be because they have more years of experience, or because they have a particular interest in the topic. They are often the physicians who are the first to try new ideas or techniques.

Discussion Process
Sometimes just the act of discussing a problem with a colleague helps to clarify a problem. They may ask you a question, which triggers your own knowledge of a problem, or deals with a possible solution that you had not considered. At the Medical Information Service, this happens frequently when I call a physician to clarify a question.

Availability
Most physicians have access to professional colleagues, either in the same clinic or at the hospital. With the advent of the Internet, even the most isolated physician can communicate with peers by electronic mail.

Quality of Information
No matter how well you know your colleagues, you should still apply the principles of evidence-based medicine to their information. Is it possible that their knowledge is no greater than yours is, but they will give you an opinion anyway? When I was in training, there was a standing joke at Pediatric Rounds, that, no matter how obscure the disease, one particular pediatrician had always "had a case once".

Suggestions

Use Electronic Mail
E-mail allows you to discuss medical problems with your colleagues or specialists in a very efficient manner. You send the e-mail message at a time convenient to you, and they read it at a convenient time for them. Neither of you wastes time playing "telephone tag".

Share Journal Articles
One rural Alberta hospital has an excellent idea that is worth copying. Whenever a physician reads a really excellent journal article, they make a photocopy and post it on the bulletin board for their colleagues to read. You could easily make these journal articles the basis for an informal journal club.

Case Discussions at Hospital Rounds
If your hospital department sponsors regular hospital rounds, consider making one meeting out of the month a time for everyone to bring one problem case and discuss it with the other participants.

Join A Local Discussion Group
The College of Family Physicians of Canada sponsors a formal Small Group Discussion program. For information about programs in your area, contact the provincial chapter of the CFPC. Or consider forming your own informal discussion group by meeting with some colleagues for lunch and a discussion of recent journal articles in your field. For information on the CFPC program in Alberta, contact Dr. Adrian Gretton – agretton@.ucalgary.ca.

Internet Discussion Groups
The Canadian Medical Association sponsors a "Clinical Question & Answer" discussion group. You can register to join it at the CMA website. Many specialty associations have websites, and some of them have discussion groups limited to members of the association. The CMA and the Alberta Medical Association both maintain lists of Canadian and International specialty organizations.