Sexual Medicine and Medical Collaboration · Referral Practice

Who Do You Call

Three presentations, ten providers, and one referral letter written four different ways. The question in each case is not what the client has. It is who is equipped to find out.

What this exercise practises

Matching a presentation to the provider whose scope answers the clinical question, recognising when a generalist comes before a specialist, and writing a referral that produces a useful reply.

Several of the ten providers are near misses rather than errors in each case, and the notes say why. The last part is the letter itself, where the common failures are vagueness, overdisclosure and diagnosing on behalf of the person you are referring to.

Estimated time to complete this exercise: 15 minutes

1Referral one
2Referral two
3Referral three
4The letter
5Close

Before you begin

How this one works

Three referrals. For each one, choose the provider you would send the client to first, from the ten in the Module 11 referral table.
There is one answer per case that the module supports, and several of the others are near misses rather than errors. You will get a note on whichever one you choose.
The last part is the referral letter itself. Four versions of the same referral, one of which does the job.
Nothing is graded and nothing is recorded. Reloading starts it again.

The threshold for referral is clinical suspicion, not diagnostic certainty. What the module asks of you is recognition, normalisation and appropriate referral, which means the question is not what the client has. It is who is equipped to find out.

References

  1. Basson, R., Wierman, M. E., van Lankveld, J., & Brotto, L. (2010). Summary of the recommendations on sexual dysfunctions in women. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 7(1), 314–326. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01617.x
  2. Shifren, J. L., Monz, B. U., Russo, P. A., Segreti, A., & Johannes, C. B. (2008). Sexual problems and distress in United States women: Prevalence and correlates. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 112(5), 970–978. https://doi.org/10.1097/AOG.0b013e3181898cdb