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Lainie S. Ross, MD
Westport, Conn

JAMA. 1990;264(2):184.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The article by Dr Reuben and Ms Noble, "House Officer Responses to Impaired Physicians,"¹ addresses the serious issue of how medicine self-regulates. Although Dr Reuben and Ms Noble acknowledge that their study is limited because "the use of case scenarios does not permit us to comment on what house officers would do if situations similar to the case scenarios actually occurred," they claim that "in contrast to the commonly held notion that there is underreporting of physician impairment, our data suggest that the vast majority of house officers would have taken some initial action...."

The first scenario describes an abusive physician who is noted to have the smell of alcohol on his breath, but it does not state whether the physician acted competently or not. Nor does it state whether the physician acted inebriated or may have just had a few sips of wine with dinner. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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