By Sarah Stone

PAPHR tries to clear the air on doctor boundaries

Mar 13, 2015 | 6:45 AM

It’s an issue with a grey area.

Two workshops were held by the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region (PAPHR) about doctor-patient boundaries.

“Our physicians in our community have been projected almost in a bad light recently and we wanted to get some input from the physician’s support group, which is the Saskatchewan Medical Association, as well as get some legal advice in terms of what constitutes boundaries for physicians and what doesn’t,” said Cecil Hammond, senior medical officer for the PAPHR.

In addition, he said the workshop covered how to respond to professional boundaries.

“Some boundaries are clear cut; sexual boundaries, confidentiality, but others are very grey.”

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He said doctor boundaries go beyond what has been in the media recently regarding overstepping sexual boundaries.

“Physician-patient boundaries encompass much more than that and it includes interaction with people on a business level in society, the way we interact our junior staff, the way we interact with other health-care providers, the way we interact with our family members on a professional basis,” he said.

In smaller rural communities where doctors are part of the community in a large way, he said it can be difficult to try to establish boundaries in terms of work and social life. 

“Now … being a physician encompasses many things; you’re working in a big city where there’s lots of pressures, or you’re working in rural Saskatchewan where you got very little social interaction.  Maybe a foreign doctor who’s put into little community, how do you interact with that community while maintaining your professional boundaries?”

Presentations were made on what constitutes doctor-patient boundaries, what are the responsibilities of doctors regarding boundaries, what sort of breaches can occur regarding doctor-patient boundaries. According to Hammond, attendees were presented with different scenarios in which these boundaries would be tested. They were given advice for how to manage conflicts or when the boundaries aren’t clearly defined.

For Hammond, it was an “eye-opener” and “more enlightening in how much more boundaries there are that physicians tread carefully when they interact in society.” Boundaries are changing, he added.

The workshop held over two day wasn’t mandatory, but Hammond was very impressed with how many physicians actually attended with more than 100 accounted for.

“Most physicians don’t respond to this sort of this thing in that manner and to me it shows our physicians look on professional boundaries as a serious issue and that, you know, they wanted to get more information and be able to ask questions and help themselves make better judgement calls for the future even,” he said.

Now, he thinks they’ll hold this workshop on a regular basis as more doctors come to the PAPHR.

“It’s very important because we have lots of young physicians who are quite concerned that, you know, their reputations may be ruined with just a single complaint and they were there at one of the meetings; we had a lot of residents and students asking questions about the process of boundary violations.”

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84