James F. Burke, MD Roger L. Albin, MD HOW WAS THE STUDY PERFORMED? Willis et al.1 reviewed Medicare data to explore 2 questions. First, what characteristics determine whether a patient with Parkinson disease (PD) sees a neurologist? Second, are patients who see a neurologist likely to live longer than patients who do not see a neurologist? The Medicare data for this study data came from insuran...

A study of 200 patients referred to a community neurologist showed that 87.5% of the patients were seen in the office and only 12.5% in hospital. Neurological signs were present in 52% and 28.5% had neurological signs which materially affected the diagnosis. A questionnaire sent to several teaching centers showed that only one center sent students and residents to community neurologists' office...

Correspondence to: Dr J Stone, Consultant Neurologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Neurology, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, UK; [email protected] IS IT YOUR JOB AS A NEUROLOGIST TO DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM? If you find people with ‘‘neurological symptoms but no disease’’ tiresome and not really what you came in to the specialty for, then yo...