As a member of the Grossmont Hospital medical staff, many of you participate in the ER backup call panel. This is greatly appreciated by your colleagues who rely on you to help take care of their patients. Patients and the general public are also grateful to have the highly skilled medical staff of Grossmont Hospital available.



Being on call for the ER back up panel means that when an emergency physician requests a consultation, you are obligated to respond appropriately. Policy #35089.99 (Emergency Department Backup Panel) outlines the on-call physician responsibility and states that "physicians must respond and provide such emergency care regardless of patients' payment status or other non-medical criteria."

Lack of response or refusal to provide care for Emergency Department requests may mean EMTALA violations with fines potentially levied against the individual physician and the facility.

If you have any questions about this policy or about specific situations/cases, please feel free to contact me at 619-229-3932 or email me at rjain@sdsm.net.

Are you interested in seeing a recently published issue of the E-Bulletin?