[The practice of neurology by regional specialists in Vizcaya (Spain)]

We describe the practice of 3 regional specialists in neurology in 1993 and 1994 at Hospital de Cruces in Vizcaya. Each neurologist alternately spent 1 day working in the hospital ward and another day working in an external clinic in the region, thus allowing clinic patients to be seen consistently by the same neurologist, while responsibility for inpatients could be shared by 2 physicians. All clinic patients in the region and the majority of hospital patients were covered by these specialists. A yearly average of 683.05 new patients were seen; 177.72 (26.01%) as inpatients, 82 (12%) at the hospital-based outpatient clinic and 423.33 (61.98%) at other clinics in the region. The wait time for new patients in the regional clinics was 119.71 days; 21.97% of these patients were classified as having no neurological disease (with diagnoses of syncope and peripheral vertigo included in this group), 25.74% had headache and 40.12% had cerebrovascular, neuromuscular, degenerative disease or epilepsy. Hospitalized patients released with diagnoses of non-neurological disease or cephalea represented 12.91% of the total; 50.6% of hospital patients had cerebrovascular disease.