Consultation-referral among physicians: practice and process.

Consultation-referral is a part of everyday family practice. Although the process is taken for granted, it is a complex phenomenon. Neither the practice nor the process always meet the expectations of the referring physician or the consultant, and the patient may be the worse because of this discrepany. Studies of the practice and the process support this view. A model of the process is elaborated which can be used for the teaching of medical students or residents and which the practicing physician may use to improve his/her consultation-referral practices.