How Do You Treat VIP Patients?

Medscape Roundtable Discussion: How Do You Treat VIP Patients? If a patient is a "very important person" (VIP), do you treat them differently?

The participants are 3 well-known medical bloggers: Robert Centor, Nicholas Genes, Graham Walker, and Theresa Polick, RN. There are some useful thoughts in the opinion pieces as well as in the open discussion at the end of the article.

I have treated several VIP patients and the most important thing to remember is to provide the usual care without cutting any corners. What often puts VIP patients in trouble is the false feeling that the usual rules do not apply to them, for example, let's take the shortcut and skip that routine chest X-ray prior to procedure x (put your choice of procedure here). This is never a good idea. I have read somewhere the story of a German (or Austrian) king who always insisted be admitted under a false name on a regular floor and not be given any special treatment. He was smart enough to know that was the best way to survive a hospital stay.

References:
How Do You Treat VIP Patients? Medscape Med Students, Roundtable Discussion, 07/17/2007.
Another Medscape roundtable. DB’s Medical Rants, 07/2007.
Image source: Dannyman, Flickr, a Creative Commons license.

Further reading:
Dennis Quaid’s Kids: Are VIPs Safer? Wachter's World, 11/2007.
I’ll take $67 million to go with that, please! Notes from Dr. RW, 02/2008.

Updated: 02/04/2008