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GP's should be trained better.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
what do you think?
I think GP's make so many mistakes and often just send people with serious problems away. My friends aunt just died becuase the doctor dismissed a bad headache as stress and in reality she had a brain tumor.
I had two immunisations at the same time even though I shouldn't have had. Then whilst practically unconcious and gasping for breath, my mum called the GP and she was told to bring me in for afternoon surgery!!! Thankfully my mum called an ambulance and I was kept in for a week with an alergic reaction!
GP's are all well and good for diagnosisng ear ache but seem to miss or miss diagnose everything else.
My cousin has just been given anti biotics for and infection in her exma but surprise surprise, the anti-biotics dont work because no infection is visible, she has just been scratching too much.
When I was away I got tonsilitis, at first no anti - biotics were given and by the time they were pescribed I already felt a bit better so didnt take them. The thing is, I never got better and that is what other doctors think caused my M.E. I am not saying that had I had the right medicine I wouldnt be ill now, just that there is a chance I wouldnt have got M.E then.
You always read of stories of cancer being missed because tiredness is dismissed as over work.
I think GP's should be trained A &E doctors so they are better at spotting serious complaints.
Not all GP's are bad I mean there are some excelent ones but I am just sayin that too many mistakes are made.
What do you think?
I think GP's make so many mistakes and often just send people with serious problems away. My friends aunt just died becuase the doctor dismissed a bad headache as stress and in reality she had a brain tumor.
I had two immunisations at the same time even though I shouldn't have had. Then whilst practically unconcious and gasping for breath, my mum called the GP and she was told to bring me in for afternoon surgery!!! Thankfully my mum called an ambulance and I was kept in for a week with an alergic reaction!
GP's are all well and good for diagnosisng ear ache but seem to miss or miss diagnose everything else.
My cousin has just been given anti biotics for and infection in her exma but surprise surprise, the anti-biotics dont work because no infection is visible, she has just been scratching too much.
When I was away I got tonsilitis, at first no anti - biotics were given and by the time they were pescribed I already felt a bit better so didnt take them. The thing is, I never got better and that is what other doctors think caused my M.E. I am not saying that had I had the right medicine I wouldnt be ill now, just that there is a chance I wouldnt have got M.E then.
You always read of stories of cancer being missed because tiredness is dismissed as over work.
I think GP's should be trained A &E doctors so they are better at spotting serious complaints.
Not all GP's are bad I mean there are some excelent ones but I am just sayin that too many mistakes are made.
What do you think?
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Comments
You were gasping for breath amnd your mother calls the GP? Why? It is common sense to go straight to A&E. Your GP is not there for emergency calls such as that. You should never ever call your GP in such a situation, you should go straight to A&E.
If you go to see your GP and the symptoms match those of an ear infection then they will automatically prescribe, if they hadn't and the condition had worsened people would be the first to sue them for negligence!
I've never read one story of cancer being misdiagnosed as cancer. Tiredness is a symptom of many, may illnesses and if a GP automatically thinks every single person complaining of being tired has cancer then they would be accused of putting fear into people - there has to be other symptoms!
Tonsillitis can be either bacterial or viral. In the majority if cases it is viral in which case anti-biotics do not help because they cannot be used to treat viral infection. Sometimes it is caused by streptococcal bacteria which will respond to some anti-biotics.
In answer to your question, you're right, some GPs are crap others are excellent. It is a very stressful job that is quite often taken for granted by patients. Your GP is a general practitioner - they have to know a lot about a lot of illnesses and when there is something they are unsure of the proceedure is to refer you to a specialist who has an indepth knowledge of your condition. There will always be misdiagnosis because there are so many illnesses and diseases which have the same symptoms up to a certain point. But yes, some GPs are atrocious and are only in it for the money rather than to help people.
1. GP and other doctors are so busy that they will do nothing other than fob people off. They don't have the time to take an interest, so they don't- give a quick answer and get the patient out of the door. My grand-dad died of lung cancer- he had been complaining of chest pains for a year or more, but the doctor said it was just stress. It was a locum who saw it.
2. This brings me onto the second point: doctor is always right. If you disagree with a diagnosis you might as well piss in the wind for treatment, a doctor is never going to back down. Not ever. Because Doctor Is Always Right. My cousin has diabetes, and my aunt was given advice from a doctor at the Infirmary that, if taken, could kill my cousin. The doctor refused to retract the advice, even when shown to be wrong.
Doctors are notorioous for making mistakes, and then refusing to admit that a mistake was made. They won't even apologise- go and ask any mother who has been trated like shite in a maternity ward, and go and look at sccum like Professor Meadow.
It's not training, it is workload and attitude. The workload makes mistakes more likely, and the attitude means the doctor will never rectify them.
I work for two GPs and one of them is exactly as you described, the other is the complete opposite. She cares too much and takes too much time over things, so much time in actual fact that we can't offer an appointment with her for over a week and she runs at least an hour late everyday. There are GPs who are exactly as you've described and there are others who aren't... the same as you'll get in any profession I suppose.
If you were almost unconscious and were having difficulty breathing? The thing is GPs don't have the time to take such telephone calls. People call asking to speak with their GP because their kids have headlice and they want to know what to use, or because they want a sicknote without being seen. I know there are tons of situations we could debate but lets not, because we see it from different sides of the coin don't we?
Your experience at the FPC was atrocious and I'm surprised you didn't complain!! Some GPs don't want to listen, they just want you to sit down, shut up, take your medication and bugger off. Then they'll charge someone £10 for the privilage. Thats what aforementioned GP who works for my employer does.
I've had bad experiences too and I'm not denying there are some crap GPs but I just don't think they should all be condemned because it is usually the actions of a select few who give the rest a bad name. You can't claim that because a certain GP is bad that the rest need more training.
NHS Direct needs to be advertised more, ring an NHS Direct GP rather than a local GP. Maybe switchboards should have a call divert function for it, or something.
But people don't like to cause a scene, and don't ever think of their symptoms as emergencies. That's why they don't call 999 or go to A&E, because they don't want to waste time. If GPs aren't able to appreciate this then they need to develop better personal skills, even if ringing the GP isn't the right course of action.
You're joking right? Maybe the people you know don't like to cause a fuss but the patients at our surgery will go to A&E because they've got a sore throat (we get A&E slips daily to this effect!). We've also had to send letters to all patients reminding them that A&E isn't a walk in GP service and we also advertised NHS Direct to them, including leaflets and small cards with NHS Direct phone number on. We sent this to all 2,000 patients and we still get people asking what they can use for their kids headlice!
People don't know things, bumph gets binned, there has to be other ways. And with the way the NHS has been run since 1997, it's no wonder people are so confused.
When you get a phone call at 8 am on a Sunday and you get some stupid teenage mum going in the phone book and ringing the GPs home number because they can't be arsed with proper protocol, and then complaining their four year old has a cough and asks you to come around (Doctor's Co-operative, anyone?) because she couldn't be bothered to turn up to the appointment on the Friday, and you are just the doctor's son who has spent five minutes trying to explain you can't actual help because you a) couldn't care less and b) don't have a degree in medicine, you become frustrated with comments like the one above.
Though I do agree with everyone having NHS Direct on their notice board, if not imbedded in their mind.
I don't understand why anyone wants to do medicine with the political correctness, the pussy footing et al that has developed recently.
How many patients will a GP see in a week? 200?
And how many patients do the above? 2?
You do the math. But the dominant attitude in the health service is that all patients are as stupid as the one who does a stupid thing, and therefore all patients deserve to be trated like morons.
I'm treated like a moron by many GPs, so is GWST. And we aren't.
What's the other option? Sending every patient with a cough to see a radiologist?
You can complain retarded patients are in the minority, but I firmly believe the same for GPs.
IF a doctor talks to me like I am a moron, I think he is less trustworthy. And I would imagine a lot of patients feel the same.
Maybe good GPs are more numerous, but from personal experience of me, my family and my friends, they certainly are not. Depressive illnesses make a GP ten times worse.
I recently saw my GP for the first time ever (as a GP) and yes, he did talk to me in a patronising tone, but he needed a certain set of answers so he can analyze your complaint and diagnose what the problem is. I'd rather he said "Now, tell me if it hurts. It might hurt a bit but you MUST tell me" than see a look of anguish on his face as if him bending my knee was tearing him up.
They DO know more than you about medicine. That's why they are a doctor and not a builder, a plumber or a teacher. If you have a problem with someone knowing more than you and talking to you as such then the problem is with you, not with the doctor.
I actually find that comment offensive.
Of course they know more, they've studied it for 47 years. What's your point?
There's a difference between knowing more about a subject and talking to sopmebody else as if, because they don't know much about medicine, they are a complete imbecile. Because although doctors know more about medicine, they don't know more about how a person feels, do they? And it doesn't mean that doctor is always right, even when the patient says that the symptoms don't match the description the doctor made, does it?
I know more about the law than most people because I have studied it, but that doesn't mean that I have to explain it like the other person is a retard. And I don't.
Doctors quite often seem to have the attitude that they are right and any patient who queries them is a moron hypochondriac. I have friends who have gone to the doctors saying that their ADs are making them feel ill, so the doctor doubles the dose. And that happens a lot.
There are a lot of good doctors, I've been lucky to meet a lot, but most, sadly, are more interested in getting home to their golf than actually LISTENING to their patients. 'Cause, y'know, the doctors will denounce Mrs X as a hypochondriac for coming back with chest pains every three weeks, and won't even fucking say sorry when she dies of cancer two months later.
To an extent you are right. In that what you actually said there is perfectly true.
However, what many doctors forget is that the person who knows more about how a patient is feeling, the person who knows more about the symptoms, the person who is more likely to be right when they say "just don't feel right"... is the patient.
They live with every condition on a daily basis, not just for five minutes between mrs Smith with the dodgy ticker, and Mr Jones with the prostate problem.
Doctors should remember that and listen to what they are being told, rather than jump to conclusions quickly because that is what the [apparent] demand is.
What they may find is that ten minutes spent with the patient today will mean that they won't have to see that person for months, rather than the five minutes today being repeated on several occasions because the symptoms weren't treated properly in the first place.
And this is another fair point.
GPs have it tough, and I'm not talking Govt targets here.
When you attend the GP for the first time, he/she will have no idea why you are there. And serval symptoms can lead to serval different diagnosis. The entire consultantion is about the GP ruling things out.
This is why the patient has a responsibility to make sure that they give the GP as much information as possible - and they will only do that if the GP isn't a patronising oaf who treats them like something he scraped off his shoe.
Ther are something like 1 million GP appointments every day in the UK. So I question your comment "so many".
See above.
An infection doesn't have to be "visible" for antibiotics to work
Do you mean that there wasn't actually an infection there at all?
If the girl in question knew that she had been scratching too much, why do to the GP?
Thus you answer you own point.
No anti-biotics were given because the GP didn't think you needed them. As you subsequently didn't I would argue that the GP was correct.
Oh, and over prescribing antibiotics causes resistance and also bacteria are mutating to become resistance (e.g MRSA & VRSA) so I don't have a problem with GP toning down the amount of antibiotics given.
I would also comment that too many patients have unrealistic expectations and often the GPs used to prescribe antibiotics not because they were justified, but because it was what the patient expected.
A survey carried out in General Practice found that a large proportion of patients expected to leave the surgery with a prescription. So those patient would have been unsatisfied with the service, if they hadn't had these expections realised.
What you don't get to read about is the millions of successful treatments carried out every year. Just not news, is it?
Where do you think they train then?
Every GP will have done SHO rotations just like consultants. This includes time in each specialty including A&E. After this they move towards GP training.
BTW Are you suggesting that A&E doctors don't misdiagnose?
To an extent you are right. Training is an issue, but to train a GP to be able to diagnose correctly everytime would mean that we just didn't have any GPs actually practising. Besides, humans make mistakes.
When a plumber makes a mistake, your get a water leak.
When a doctors makes a mistake someone could die.
The implications are different, but they are both human and we should remember that.
I do think that they need more training about how to relate to people as people and not just interesting medical conditions...
sorry ... not read the thread properly but i have a couple of personal points to make regarding it from what i have glanced at:
this is not the case at home for me. if something like that happens then it is the doctor that we call out as my nearest A&E is 80 miles away. just be careful who you are accusing as the person in question may not be anywhere near a hospital, therefore it is the GP that they called.
while i was depressed my care from my doctor was top notch. i could not have asked for anything better than what i got. do not stereotype just because you have not experienced good doctors regarding mental health issues.
It's either:
Then I apologise. It was not my intention to offend, but I do not see the offensive side of it. Perhaps you could tell me how I offended you.
Or:
Oh my, really? Oh I am SO sorry. I should think before I say things like that! Oh dear, I really have messed up this time.
The first one is genuine. It could be taken in a patronising sense, but to me it makes much more sense than the latter, which I just made up.
Try local nursing homes, residential homes and the elderly, with an actual half hour lunch break.
Do you know how stressful it is for a GP to see patients all morning, have housecalls to loval nursing homes etc during their 'lunchbreak' and then do an afternoon surgery? The GP I work for doesn't have lunch, works long days, still finds time to do prescriptions and paperwork and has just returned to work after suffering from a blood clot on her brain that very nearly killed her, and do her patients care how run off her feet she is? Nope, the just keep demanding more.
As for housecalls... what exactly do you mean 'you can't even get them'? Why should you get them? They are really only for the infirm and disabled not for people who feel a little bit poorly. Most people can be transported by car and believe it or not just because you don't have a car or a friend to bring you doesn't mean you are eligible for your GP to visit you... the reason the surgery is 'closed' for all those hours is because of home visits the majority of which could be avoided. Furthermore, I would like to point out that another reason they have a break between the morning and afternoon is to wind down a little, so that they are less stressed and less prone to mistakes.
What you seem to have forgotten Bumble is that doctors don't get ill, they don't have personal lives and they certainly aren't human. After all, a human would have frailties...
Indeed, let's make this simple to understand.
A visit to you GP mean that he/she can give 18 people ten minutes each in a three hour clinic.
GP visting you means that each person can still have ten minutes each, but the GP needs ten minutes to get from house to house. Effectively this means that each person takes the GP 20 minutes to see, thus reducing the number of patients seen in three hours by half.
Now, if any single patient there could have made their own way to the surgery but didn't, they have eefectively robbed another patient the chance of seeing their GP.
I would add that the GP also needs a little time to write referral letters to hospitals, write repeat prescriptions and deal with internal mail.
People should also remember that every single practice is a small business, and so there are a few tasks which every business has to undertake and GPs are no different.