Two kinds of referral letters
Two kinds of referral letters:
1. To the
medical practioner requesting assessment of the current status of the patient
(this is required in the case of medically compromised patients before doing
invasive procedures, for eg, Referral of a diabetic patient before periodontal
surgery)
2. To the
dental specialist, requesting assessment or treatment. (For eg, request to an
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon for management of suspected mucocele!)
The following is a guide to write referral letter to a
general physician
Two kinds of referral letters
Writing a referral letter to General Physician
Sample format of referral letter to the patient's
physician for assessment prior to dental management:
Introductory section:
Referring Practioner Details:
-
Name of Referring doctor:
-
Complete Practice Address: (with postcode)
-
Telephone Number: (if available)
-
Fax Number: (if available)
-
Email Id: (if available)
Referral Letter To:
-
Complete details of the consultant/practioner/hospital:
-
Name of consultant/receiving practioner:
-
Speciality clinic/ward:
-
Hospital and Hospital address/Complete Practice Address: (with postcode)
-
Telephone Number: (if available)
-
Email Id: (if available)
Urgency
of referral:
Urgent/Soon/Routine
Patient Details:
Full name with surname with title (Ms, Mrs., Mr. etc)
Clinical Information:
The referral
letter to a physician should containt the following three important items:
1. Reason for referral:
2. Proposed Dental Treatment
-
Planned
procedure: Brief description of the procedure (including flap reflection etc)
-
List of drugs
with dose to be used during and after the treatment (anesthetics, analgesics,
antibiotics etc)
-
Physical stress
involved in the procedure (how much the normal patients tolerate the same
procedure)
3. Request for disclosure of contraindications,
precautions, and/or medications changes that the physician recommends.
Greetings
An example format of referral letter to the physician under whose care the patient is:
Referral From
Dr.
Referral To
Dr.
RE: Mr. John Kempf(D.O.B: 12 December, 1970) [better to use this format than the dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy which can cause confusion since the Dr. might not know which format is used!]
Dear Doctor
:
"Mr. John Kempf, a 46 year old male patient under my dental practice, revealed
at a recent visit that he has been diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and is under
your care for this disease. He reports that he has been taking the prescribed
anti-hypertensive drugs daily. But Mr. Kempf isn't certain of the medication
name and dosage of the drugs he is taking. His blood pressure was 134/86 then.
Mr. Kempf will
require elective removal of an impacted upper left 3rd molar. The surgery is
tentatively scheduled 15 days later on . The surgery will require
administration of Local anesthetic (2% lignocaine with epinephrine) and a
narcotic analgesic for post operative pain. The surgery will require 45 minutes
- 1 hour. The surgery will involve reflection of a buccal flap and mechanical
bone removal to facilitate removal of the impacted upper left 3rd molar. Few
intra oral suturing will be required; however, many patients have a limited post
operative discomfort in the form of swelling for 2 days, which subsides on its
own without any additional treatment. But this, usually does not prevent the
intake of a regular diet.
In your opinion,
are there any precautions or contraindications to the proposed surgery?
Additionally, please let me know of any change of Mr. Kempf's medication
schedule or dietary habits with respect to the proposed surgery. Kindly add
details on any other medical consideration of which I must know regarding Mr.
Kempf which he might not have fully disclosed to me.
Please do not
hesitate to contact me, if you require any additional information. Waiting for
your reply,
Yours Sincerely,
Dr.
Instructions
specific to OET:
-
The time given is
45 minutes and best use of the time to write the referral letter is essential.
-
Make it neat and
legible (though in clinical practice one might be using typed/printed
letters of referral)
-
There is NO need
to use subheadings or headings in the letter, these are offered for better
understanding. The letter body describing the clinical information can be
divided into paragraphs.
-
Remember that the
letter should follow the specific format of a "Professional Letter"
-
There is again no
specific format, but any professional letter format with the specified
guidelines would serve the purpose.
Note:
This referral letter format is general format for
writing a referral letter. Those who have already taken OET exams, kindly
specify any specific changes/additional requirements with respect to OET exams
(which I am NOT aware of).
I have done this file in hurry and any silly mistakes or
typo errors are regretted. If you find any mistake, kindly inform me about the
same at
webmaster@rxbds.com and I will make the corrections at the earliest.
Corrections made......on 14 September, 2006
1. COMMA should NOT used after salutation. It has been corrected to COLON.
2. RE: was previously Mrs. Sophia Kempf
Has been corrected to:
Mr. John Kempf
