Correspondence Details
Medicine today is very specialized, thus, patient care often involves many providers representing different specialties, and patients can be and are referred to several such specialists, perhaps even in the course of a single disease process. These providers then communicate with one another by telephone, fax, and letter, sending copies of pertinent reports and laboratory data, and often formal correspondence, not only as a courtesy, but as a practical means intended to keep the referring physician apprised of the patient's examination and the impression, diagnoses, and/or response to current, intercurrent, or anticipated treatment. The following letter was dictated by a gastroenterologist.