Editor – We are writing in response to the letter by Pittman and colleagues in the December 2009 issue of Clinical Medicine and their survey on whether patients know the name of their consultant (Clin Med December 2009 pp 633–4).
We are in agreement that this is an important issue. Not knowing who is in charge of your care can add to the bewilderment and anxiety surrounding a hospital admission. One solution, developed by our firm, is for the consultant to give every patient on the post-take ward round a business card with his name and contact details (including email address) (Fig 1). The card is larger than normal (12.5 cm by 7.5 cm) and we use a bigger font size (14 point) to assist the visually impaired.
Fig 1.
An example of the business card.
We feel that this approach demonstrates strong leadership by ensuring that the patient and family are clear as to who is in charge of their care. In our experience we have found this strategy to be well received by patients and families.