When a Patient's Family Member Is a Physician: Benefits and Challenges

June 2025 | Vol. 69, No. 2
Written by Angela Zawisza, DO

A trauma surgeon stands in a hospital hallway, listening to the overnight resident presenting an admission, a 70-year-old male transferred from a Caribbean country. Generally healthy, he arrived in the Emergency Department there with complaints of shortness of breath. Further history revealed a fall on the ice prior to his trip, and over the following ten days, he experienced increasing shortness of breath along with bruising on the left flank and lateral chest wall. Imaging in the outside ED revealed a large fluid collection in the left hemithorax, and subsequent chest tube placement resulted in the removal of two liters of serosanguinous fluid. This occurred 72 hours prior to admission to this hospital. The patient had been placed on antibiotics, and once medical flight arrangements were made, he was transported to this hospital for definitive treatment.

“Oh, by the way, his daughter is a physician.”

We all deal with challenging family members, but how does hearing that a family member is a physician change that perspective? Is it a relief that perhaps the conversation will be a little easier, with the family member available to translate medical-speak? Or is it a concern that the family member will make unreasonable demands, or try to dictate care in a medical field in which he or she is not trained?  

These were the thoughts running through my head as I prepared to speak to the trauma surgeon, as the patient in the above scenario is my father. I was not present with him on his vacation, so at this point, I had already spent three stressful days translating information from my non-medical family into my own medically-trained brain. As you can imagine, speaking with a physician in a foreign country had proved to be difficult. I didn’t want to be THAT family member, but I was starved for information on my father and for reassurance that he would be okay. 

I ended up going to visit my father and my family in Missouri, spending the majority of four days in the hospital with him. Each time a new healthcare team member entered the room, my dad enthusiastically introduced me as “my doctor daughter from Pennsylvania.” I am glad he is proud, but part of me cringed because that information is bound to color the patient experience, whether positive or negative. As is likely to happen during a prolonged hospitalization, there were parts of his hospital stay that he felt should have gone differently, but I was able to educate him on normal variances within the hospital setting and alleviate his discontent.

Physician family members play a unique role for the hospitalized patient. They are able to advocate on behalf of the patient to the care team; however, they also advocate on behalf of the physician to the patient. A patient in the hospital is already experiencing some of his or her worst days. It is easy, for example, for a patient to feel as though “this hospital doesn’t know what they’re doing” because it took more than one attempt to draw blood or place an IV catheter, when in reality, it can be really difficult to obtain venous access on a sick patient. Conversely, a physician family member is arguably better suited to discuss a patient’s complicated medical history with the providers and provide background information and historical nuances that might affect patient care.

At one point during my father’s hospital stay in the Caribbean, one of my family members mentioned that they were about to intubate him. I, of course, panicked, only to find out thirty minutes later that he simply meant that my father had a chest tube placed.  While we as physicians do our best to explain everything that is going on, patients often misunderstand the medical care provided or its rationale. As the physician family member, it is our job to ensure the information we are receiving from the patient is accurate, and to have the humility to ask the physician caring for the patient for clarification, not question them. 

Of course, there are times when the family member’s treatment is below the standard of care, and it is absolutely your job to support them. Admittedly, physicians walk a fine line between advocating for their loved ones and overstepping bounds. The phrase “stay in your lane” ran through my head a few times while in the hospital with my father; as a pediatric hospitalist, I was out of my element amongst the trauma and cardiothoracic surgeons.

These days, challenging family members sometimes seem to be the norm rather than the exception. Physician family members need not be the bane of our existence, but rather play a unique and ultimately supportive role in the physician-patient dynamic.