BOSTON, MA – In an unusual move yesterday at Massachusetts Lieutenant General Hospital (MGLH), a medical team has consulted psychiatry to determine if their patient’s lungs have capacity.
Morgan explained that in actuality any health care professional can determine capacity. However, in this particular pulmonary case, he deferred on making that determination. In fact, Morgan consulted pulmonary on admission and even they deferred on making that determination.
“If you really want to have the best assessment of capacity, even if it’s the lungs, you gotta call psych, that’s a no brainer,” insisted pulmonary & critical care attending Shannon Boucher. “Pulmonary function tests can prove very useful in answering those questions, no doubt, but it will never top the gold standard of a psychiatrist, his or her psychiatry couch, and taking the time to delve into the lungs’ deep and dark psyche.”
The patient has been NPO after midnight in preparation for today’s psychiatry evaluation.
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