doctors conferred by telephone

[Osya Bender]

confer
When you confer with someone, you discuss something with them in order to make a decision. You can also say that two people confer.
His doctors conferred by telephone and agreed that he must get away from his family for a time.
(Collins Cobuild dictionary)

In dictionaries "confer" in this meaning takes a preposition, so I'm not sure if I see the sentence correctly.
As I see, the sentence means:
His doctors conferred with each other/among themselves by telephone ...
Am I right?
Thank you.

 

[Barb_D]

Yes, you have it right.

 

[MikeNewYork]

confer
When you confer with someone, you discuss something with them in order to make a decision. You can also say that two people confer.
His doctors conferred by telephone and agreed that he must get away from his family for a time.
(Collins Cobuild dictionary)

In dictionaries "confer" in this meaning takes a preposition, so I'm not sure if I see the sentence correctly.
As I see, the sentence means:
His doctors conferred with each other/among themselves by telephone ...
Am I right?
Thank you.

In that context, the word "confer" assumes a conversation between two or more people. Therefore, the word works fine in the first sentence without the following prepositional phrase.