Staying Against Advice: Refusal to Leave the Hospital

Abstract

Lessons Learned at the Interface of Medicine and Psychiatry The Psychiatric Consultation Service at Massachusetts General Hospital sees medical and surgical inpatients with comorbid psychiatric symptoms and conditions. Such consultations require the integration of medical and psychiatric knowledge. During their twice-weekly rounds, Dr Stern and other members of the Psychiatric Consultation Service discuss the diagnosis and management of conditions confronted. These discussions have given rise to rounds reports that will prove useful for clinicians practicing at the interface of medicine and psychiatry. Dr Moran is a clinical fellow in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and a resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, Boston. Dr Gross is a fellow in psychosomatic medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr Stern is chief of the Psychiatric Consultation Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr Stern is an employee of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, has served on the speaker's board of Reed Elsevier, is a stock shareholder in WiFiMD (Tablet PC), and has received royalties from Mosby/Elsevier and McGraw Hill. Drs Moran and Gross report no financial or other affiliations relevant to the subject of this article.