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Had a chat with AC before leaving for home. She was just off call and told me an all-to-common scenario:

An old woman was treated by another department for a specific condition. Soon, a complication of the treatment developed. The woman was ill but not that critical - ICU refused to take her. Naturally (to that specialty), AC was asked to take the lady over for "better" care.

Most of my friends know very well that my standard response to request of this kind is to write down "This is a complication of your treatment." and off I go. Obviously AC had much hesitancy to respond that way - she did believe that she could do the patient good by taking her over.

I have no doubt that is true, but there is a risk our good would be badly abused by our "friends" in other departments. (No, there is no risk. We certainly would be abused.)

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On my way home, I became less confident with myself. Is it my primary objective to help individual patient, or to maintain inter-disciplinary justice ?

I may try and support my ground by arguing that if "justice" of this kind is corrupted, more patients would suffer in the long run. And, as Francis Bacon said, "If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us."

But, I know just to well that "more patients" are make up of many individual patients. If we do not aim the best for each and every of them, how could we achieve anything to them as a whole ?

PS. "Justice" is an alarming word. When something is "done for justice", it is almost always coming from the tongue (and hands !) of Satan.