G.Ps your opinion

ademort

Hello, as an avid forum member for about six months now i cannot begin to tell you how much i enjoy the form, with stories, experiences and excellent knowledge by the various forum members. However one thing has become quite apparent to me, and i find it very worrying.Whenever people mention problems concerning their health or fitness its alarming that so many members say that thier G.P is the last person they would go to or listen to, I would like to ask fellow forum members is your G.P. so bad

PhilofCas

no, can't fault mine

Jeff Jones

I've not been impressed with mine (in the UK). I've not heard good things about others here that friends/family have visited. And from what I've read, this isn't a new thing. Maybe I've been spoiled having lived both in Belgium and Australia, which have very good public health systems and good GPs.

OTOH, I was looked after very well when I ended up in hospital after a crash last year.

ademort

HI Jeff the reason i asked is that i live in the Netherlands and my G.P. is fantastic, couldn,t say a bad word about him. When my ex-wife had a bypass operation he came in his own time to visit her and wish her a speedy recovery, he also said if you need anything or just want a chat you can always call me. Brilliant Ademort

Gotte

What you have to remember is that when you're a GP, you sit in your room playing with your tongue depressors. Someone comes in complaining of a pain in the elbow. You tell them to take paracetamol and if it doesn;t go away, come back in two weeks. They come back in two weeks. You tell them you don;t know what it is, but you'll send them to hospital where there's a man with a machine who will find out. You start playing with your ear thermometer.

redddraggon

Quite a few of my friends went to Medical School, a few will make good doctors but I don't know how the rest even got offered places to be honest.

I looked into doing Medicine, but some of the selection criteria are a bit stupid, Dundee wanted you to be a grade 9 musician or some sort of county athlete.

How does being a good musician or sportsperson make you a good doctor?

So perhaps when you next go to your GP, they can play the flute to make you better?

karl j

Gotte wrote:

... when you're a GP, ... Someone comes in complaining of a pain in the elbow. You tell them to take paracetamol and if it doesn;t go away, come back in two weeks. They come back in two weeks. You tell them you don;t know what it is, but you'll send them to hospital where there's a man with a machine who will find out. .

Replace the word elbow in the quote above with "head" and you've got what happened to me in the middle of last year - "take these and come back if they don't help". 3 times she tried - Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, and somesuch other pills. When i got up the hospital the bloke with the machine found a brain tumour.

In spite of that i won't speak wrong of her, apparently there are so many possible causes of "headache" that to get it right first time is (sounds to me) highly unlikely. And i wouldn't (read - couldn't) do a better job. When my son was going through his teenage troubles (!) she was the only person he felt comfortable talking to, which meant a lot to me too.

dennisn

If you don't have faith in doctors who do you go to when you have a broken leg
or, worse, cancer? A faith healer? A forum? Home, and hope it cures itself?
No, you go to a doctor. And yes, they are not perfect but the alternatives are
not even worth talking about. Have some faith, it's not a perfect world.

Dennis Noward

Gotte

dennisn wrote:

If you don't have faith in doctors who do you go to when you have a broken leg
or, worse, cancer? A faith healer? A forum? Home, and hope it cures itself?
No, you go to a doctor. And yes, they are not perfect but the alternatives are
not even worth talking about. Have some faith, it's not a perfect world.

Dennis Noward

Trouble with them is you have to take your treatment in your own hands, learn about your condition, how it should be treated, and then push all the time so as not to get lost in the system.
In my family we've had too many instances of doctors simply not talking to each other and making questionable decisions.
The system works against patients, and if you let it, and if you are unlucky, you pay the price and everyone else goes home for tea.
I have a friend who comes from Germany, and could not believe the way the local GP "treated" (or didn;t) his daughter for stomach pain. It was the old paracetemol and come back in two weeks routine. He said in Germany, they would have done an ultrasound in the GPs office.
Here it's all wait and see and fingers crossed.
How very British.

dennisn

Gotte wrote:

dennisn wrote:

If you don't have faith in doctors who do you go to when you have a broken leg
or, worse, cancer? A faith healer? A forum? Home, and hope it cures itself?
No, you go to a doctor. And yes, they are not perfect but the alternatives are
not even worth talking about. Have some faith, it's not a perfect world.

Dennis Noward

Trouble with them is you have to take your treatment in your own hands, learn about your condition, how it should be treated, and then push all the time so as not to get lost in the system.
In my family we've had too many instances of doctors simply not talking to each other and making questionable decisions.
The system works against patients, and if you let it, and if you are unlucky, you pay the price and everyone else goes home for tea.
I have a friend who comes from Germany, and could not believe the way the local GP "treated" (or didn;t) his daughter for stomach pain. It was the old paracetemol and come back in two weeks routine. He said in Germany, they would have done an ultrasound in the GPs office.
Here it's all wait and see and fingers crossed.
How very British.

So don't trust doctors. Go ahead and talk to faith healers and the like. See how well you fare. It's a free world(mostly).

Dennis Noward

squired

I went through med school, but ended up leaving the profession. In my time as a student with GPs it was just a constant flow of mothers with children (I lost count of how many times I heard the words "give him/her Calpol"), people who woke up with a sore throat that morning and old people. The problem is that when you see that sort of thing 95% of the time day in and day out I think it is then hard to get out of the mindset when something different comes in.

One other interesting thing from my time as a student was the surgeon who told us it was like being a car mechanic. You just do the same thing day in and day out, eventually on autopilot, as you've done the same operation so many times.

Part of the reason I didn't like the profession was that too many people simply didn't care. They'd been to good private schools where it was a choice between doing law or medicine, or had a parent (or parents) who was a doctor, so were doing it because of that. Having said that, I did also come across some people who were incredible and perfect for the profession - sadly they have also moved onto different careers.

Dr_Death

Suppose I'll have to comment won't I???

Doctoring is just like any other job, some people are good at it some people are bad at it. You don't have to stick with the same GP/practice. If you thought your car mechanic/LBS was riping you off/giving poor service you'd go elsewhere wouldn't you?

The other problems I see with being a GP is the training / population that you treat. GPs are trained to be generalist and know a little bit about everything. To be honest it is probably fairly easy for any intelligent person to read up everything there is to know about their condition on t'internet and then know more about it than their GP, however they would still get bested by him or her in a general medical exam.
The other problem is that we (as relatively fit, healthy, young people) do not fit in with the usual clientelle of your average GP. They are used to seeing older people and kids who are either unwell or have bugger all wrong with them and are just worried (hence the huge amount of 'Take two paracetamol and come back in two weeks' advice). We are different, we are fit active people who have done something to ourselves. GPs don't see a lot of well people who have done something to thereselves hence they don't usually have a lot of experience in it. The National Health Service is a misnomer, it should be the National Illness Service. On the whole we are not very good at providing a service for people who are well and want to either stay that way, get 'more well' or get back to being well after an injury. The royal colleges (who are allegedly in control of medical teaching - don't get me started) have noticed thia and there are now in training a whole new breed of doctors who will become consultants in sports medicine. In the near future (the next 4-5 years) these will become the people to go and see with your sports relate queries/injuries etc. Until then I'm afraid we are stuck with GPs and A&E.

(By the way, I think A&E docs are better at 'well people who are injured' but then I would wouldn't I!)

Dr_Death

Oh, and to answer the original question, my GP is pretty good at GP type problems, but I wouldn't go and see her about sports stuff; I'd speak to my mate wo is a sports physio!

Gotte

Steve, I like your sig.

That should be my GP's

alzeb

well my GP IS FANTASTIC and he understands sports AND if you cancel an appointment he rings u up to see how you are AND you can book telephone consultations AND he rings up consultants who are treating me he doesnt just rely on letter writing but the power of discussion.AND if hes not too sure on something he says so rather than mkaing it up as he goes along!

Gotte

alzeb wrote:

well my GP IS FANTASTIC and he understands sports AND if you cancel an appointment he rings u up to see how you are AND you can book telephone consultations AND he rings up consultants who are treating me he doesnt just rely on letter writing but the power of discussion.AND if hes not too sure on something he says so rather than mkaing it up as he goes along!

Wow. Where do you live. Can I register with him. he sounds the business.

dennisn

Dr_Death wrote:

Oh, and to answer the original question, my GP is pretty good at GP type problems, but I wouldn't go and see her about sports stuff; I'd speak to my mate wo is a sports physio!

So you're saying that if you break your leg, tear your MCL or ACL, or rip a big chunk of
your hide off in a sporting event it's a different kind of injury than if you fell down the stairs. I'd like to see your "sports physio" fix your torn ACL. An injury is an injury and
breaking a leg slipping on the ice is pretty much like breaking a leg in a cycling crash.
While I will admitt that sports have certain injuries that are more prevalant than couch potato injuries a pulled hamstring muscle from slipping in the bathtub hurts just like if
you had done it cycling. Sports injuries are nothing "special" and don't require "special"
people to help you with them. You have fallen for the sport injuries hype in which they
tell you that these type of injuries are "different" becaue you're an athlete.

Dennis Noward

Dr_Death

dennisn wrote:

Dr_Death wrote:

Oh, and to answer the original question, my GP is pretty good at GP type problems, but I wouldn't go and see her about sports stuff; I'd speak to my mate wo is a sports physio!

So you're saying that if you break your leg, tear your MCL or ACL, or rip a big chunk of
your hide off in a sporting event it's a different kind of injury than if you fell down the stairs. I'd like to see your "sports physio" fix your torn ACL. An injury is an injury and
breaking a leg slipping on the ice is pretty much like breaking a leg in a cycling crash.
While I will admitt that sports have certain injuries that are more prevalant than couch potato injuries a pulled hamstring muscle from slipping in the bathtub hurts just like if
you had done it cycling. Sports injuries are nothing "special" and don't require "special"
people to help you with them. You have fallen for the sport injuries hype in which they
tell you that these type of injuries are "different" becaue you're an athlete.

Dennis Noward

In my original post I didn't say that sports injuries are necessarily different to the injuries you can get walking down the street, all I'm saying is that I would see the most appropriately trained person for the illness or injury that I sustained.

In your example you mention a 'torn ACL' - what degree of tear are we talking about?? If it was a partial tear then I would quite happily take 'active' treatment from my friend the sports physio. If it was a complete rupture I would ask my mate the Orthopod to fix it back together. Taking your other examples - If I broke my leg I'd see an orthopod not my GP, if I tore a big chunk off my leg I'd fix it myself. If I had a long term chronic illness, diabetes for example, I would see my GP for my routine care. Horses for courses.


I also slightly disagree with your ideas that sports injuries don't require special people to treat them and should be treated the same as any other injury. It comes down to the degree of rehabilitation and function required. For example, if a 'couch potato' falls off his couch and breaks his ankle it is different to if a professional footballer broke his ankle. The 'couch potato' only needs an ankle that is capable of doing couch potato tasks (staggering to the fridge for another beer/pie); the footballer needs an ankle that is capable of bending, twisting and supporting huge loads. These people do not need the same degree of rehabilitation and function to get back to the level they were at before....

dennisn

Dr_Death wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Dr_Death wrote:

Oh, and to answer the original question, my GP is pretty good at GP type problems, but I wouldn't go and see her about sports stuff; I'd speak to my mate wo is a sports physio!

So you're saying that if you break your leg, tear your MCL or ACL, or rip a big chunk of
your hide off in a sporting event it's a different kind of injury than if you fell down the stairs. I'd like to see your "sports physio" fix your torn ACL. An injury is an injury and
breaking a leg slipping on the ice is pretty much like breaking a leg in a cycling crash.
While I will admitt that sports have certain injuries that are more prevalant than couch potato injuries a pulled hamstring muscle from slipping in the bathtub hurts just like if
you had done it cycling. Sports injuries are nothing "special" and don't require "special"
people to help you with them. You have fallen for the sport injuries hype in which they
tell you that these type of injuries are "different" becaue you're an athlete.

Dennis Noward

In my original post I didn't say that sports injuries are necessarily different to the injuries you can get walking down the street, all I'm saying is that I would see the most appropriately trained person for the illness or injury that I sustained.

In your example you mention a 'torn ACL' - what degree of tear are we talking about?? If it was a partial tear then I would quite happily take 'active' treatment from my friend the sports physio. If it was a complete rupture I would ask my mate the Orthopod to fix it back together. Taking your other examples - If I broke my leg I'd see an orthopod not my GP, if I tore a big chunk off my leg I'd fix it myself. If I had a long term chronic illness, diabetes for example, I would see my GP for my routine care. Horses for courses.


I also slightly disagree with your ideas that sports injuries don't require special people to treat them and should be treated the same as any other injury. It comes down to the degree of rehabilitation and function required. For example, if a 'couch potato' falls off his couch and breaks his ankle it is different to if a professional footballer broke his ankle. The 'couch potato' only needs an ankle that is capable of doing couch potato tasks (staggering to the fridge for another beer/pie); the footballer needs an ankle that is capable of bending, twisting and supporting huge loads. These people do not need the same degree of rehabilitation and function to get back to the level they were at before....

I can't believe that doctors would say "Well, you're just a couch potato so I'm just going
to wrap up your broken ankle and hope for the best, after all you're not an important
athlete or anything like that". This is not something that a person who spends all those
years in med school is likely to do. He is more than likely to give you the best care that he
can. Not giving you the best care that he can will ultimately lead to lawsuits, loss of
license, and the like. Have a little faith. There are people out there who genuinely
want to help you even if you aren't a famous footballer.

Dennis Noward

cee

i don't have a particular problem with my GP...More I have a problem with the way that the NHS treats generally healthy people.

I have heard the "National Illness Service" quip before and it rings true.

When a working professional can't gat a doctors appointment for 2 weeks (by which time they really are ill or its gone away on its own), at a time which makes sense for their job (i.e. before 9 or after 5), then the only people who can get appointments are those groups already mentioned. My local surgery doesn't even have a walk in emergency clinic and literally has a 2 week wait for appointments (I know... i tried to make one last week).

That said.....I have recently had good experiences with A&E (and in particular the ongoing physio) for a knee injury I gave myself.

edit....

also...i used to work for the college of meds and vet meds in edinburgh (in IT) and I can say to you that if the standard of student being allowed to do medicine is like that across the board, then I am afraid. very afraid.

I was partly responsible for the teaching of basic IT skills to 1st years, and honestly had a chap say to me... oh no.....daddies secretary does all of my typing for me....I don't need to learn IT skills......who later was allowed 4 resits in some 5th year exams and only just passed.

yes indeed its a scary world

Dr_Death

dennisn wrote:

Dr_Death wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Dr_Death wrote:

Oh, and to answer the original question, my GP is pretty good at GP type problems, but I wouldn't go and see her about sports stuff; I'd speak to my mate wo is a sports physio!

So you're saying that if you break your leg, tear your MCL or ACL, or rip a big chunk of
your hide off in a sporting event it's a different kind of injury than if you fell down the stairs. I'd like to see your "sports physio" fix your torn ACL. An injury is an injury and
breaking a leg slipping on the ice is pretty much like breaking a leg in a cycling crash.
While I will admitt that sports have certain injuries that are more prevalant than couch potato injuries a pulled hamstring muscle from slipping in the bathtub hurts just like if
you had done it cycling. Sports injuries are nothing "special" and don't require "special"
people to help you with them. You have fallen for the sport injuries hype in which they
tell you that these type of injuries are "different" becaue you're an athlete.

Dennis Noward

In my original post I didn't say that sports injuries are necessarily different to the injuries you can get walking down the street, all I'm saying is that I would see the most appropriately trained person for the illness or injury that I sustained.

In your example you mention a 'torn ACL' - what degree of tear are we talking about?? If it was a partial tear then I would quite happily take 'active' treatment from my friend the sports physio. If it was a complete rupture I would ask my mate the Orthopod to fix it back together. Taking your other examples - If I broke my leg I'd see an orthopod not my GP, if I tore a big chunk off my leg I'd fix it myself. If I had a long term chronic illness, diabetes for example, I would see my GP for my routine care. Horses for courses.


I also slightly disagree with your ideas that sports injuries don't require special people to treat them and should be treated the same as any other injury. It comes down to the degree of rehabilitation and function required. For example, if a 'couch potato' falls off his couch and breaks his ankle it is different to if a professional footballer broke his ankle. The 'couch potato' only needs an ankle that is capable of doing couch potato tasks (staggering to the fridge for another beer/pie); the footballer needs an ankle that is capable of bending, twisting and supporting huge loads. These people do not need the same degree of rehabilitation and function to get back to the level they were at before....

I can't believe that doctors would say "Well, you're just a couch potato so I'm just going
to wrap up your broken ankle and hope for the best, after all you're not an important
athlete or anything like that". This is not something that a person who spends all those
years in med school is likely to do. He is more than likely to give you the best care that he
can. Not giving you the best care that he can will ultimately lead to lawsuits, loss of
license, and the like. Have a little faith. There are people out there who genuinely
want to help you even if you aren't a famous footballer.

Dennis Noward

Were did I say that doctors would 'just wrap up your ankle and hope for the best'. You have to take into account the activities of the person that has the injuries in order to give the best treatment. Treatment in the NHS is rationed whether you like it or not and we have a duty to ensure that the available resources are used appropriately. A large number of the people I see would not benefit from intensive physio after there ankle injury, either because they don't need it to return to the level of function that they previously had, or more likely that they just wouldn't turn up. A smaller proportion will benefit and I see it as part of my job to ensure they get it, and that isn't just the 'professional sportsmen' it is also the little old ladies that need to get going again so they can feed the cat.

To pretend that people do not have differing needs and functions is just foolish, to pretend that we have the resources to give everyone intensive physio and rehab is even more foolish...

As another example that I see on an almost daily basis is people with fractures of their hand. A concert pianist who has done this will require it to be expertly straightened, re-aligned and fixed, followed by intensive physio to get it going again (no matter how long that takes), a bricky will want me to strap it up so it heals with no loss of grip strength so he can get back to work and earning money ASAP.

dennisn

Dr_Death wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Dr_Death wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Dr_Death wrote:

Oh, and to answer the original question, my GP is pretty good at GP type problems, but I wouldn't go and see her about sports stuff; I'd speak to my mate wo is a sports physio!

So you're saying that if you break your leg, tear your MCL or ACL, or rip a big chunk of
your hide off in a sporting event it's a different kind of injury than if you fell down the stairs. I'd like to see your "sports physio" fix your torn ACL. An injury is an injury and
breaking a leg slipping on the ice is pretty much like breaking a leg in a cycling crash.
While I will admitt that sports have certain injuries that are more prevalant than couch potato injuries a pulled hamstring muscle from slipping in the bathtub hurts just like if
you had done it cycling. Sports injuries are nothing "special" and don't require "special"
people to help you with them. You have fallen for the sport injuries hype in which they
tell you that these type of injuries are "different" becaue you're an athlete.

Dennis Noward

In my original post I didn't say that sports injuries are necessarily different to the injuries you can get walking down the street, all I'm saying is that I would see the most appropriately trained person for the illness or injury that I sustained.

In your example you mention a 'torn ACL' - what degree of tear are we talking about?? If it was a partial tear then I would quite happily take 'active' treatment from my friend the sports physio. If it was a complete rupture I would ask my mate the Orthopod to fix it back together. Taking your other examples - If I broke my leg I'd see an orthopod not my GP, if I tore a big chunk off my leg I'd fix it myself. If I had a long term chronic illness, diabetes for example, I would see my GP for my routine care. Horses for courses.


I also slightly disagree with your ideas that sports injuries don't require special people to treat them and should be treated the same as any other injury. It comes down to the degree of rehabilitation and function required. For example, if a 'couch potato' falls off his couch and breaks his ankle it is different to if a professional footballer broke his ankle. The 'couch potato' only needs an ankle that is capable of doing couch potato tasks (staggering to the fridge for another beer/pie); the footballer needs an ankle that is capable of bending, twisting and supporting huge loads. These people do not need the same degree of rehabilitation and function to get back to the level they were at before....

I can't believe that doctors would say "Well, you're just a couch potato so I'm just going
to wrap up your broken ankle and hope for the best, after all you're not an important
athlete or anything like that". This is not something that a person who spends all those
years in med school is likely to do. He is more than likely to give you the best care that he
can. Not giving you the best care that he can will ultimately lead to lawsuits, loss of
license, and the like. Have a little faith. There are people out there who genuinely
want to help you even if you aren't a famous footballer.

Dennis Noward

Were did I say that doctors would 'just wrap up your ankle and hope for the best'. You have to take into account the activities of the person that has the injuries in order to give the best treatment. Treatment in the NHS is rationed whether you like it or not and we have a duty to ensure that the available resources are used appropriately. A large number of the people I see would not benefit from intensive physio after there ankle injury, either because they don't need it to return to the level of function that they previously had, or more likely that they just wouldn't turn up. A smaller proportion will benefit and I see it as part of my job to ensure they get it, and that isn't just the 'professional sportsmen' it is also the little old ladies that need to get going again so they can feed the cat.

To pretend that people do not have differing needs and functions is just foolish, to pretend that we have the resources to give everyone intensive physio and rehab is even more foolish...

As another example that I see on an almost daily basis is people with fractures of their hand. A concert pianist who has done this will require it to be expertly straightened, re-aligned and fixed, followed by intensive physio to get it going again (no matter how long that takes), a bricky will want me to strap it up so it heals with no loss of grip strength so he can get back to work and earning money ASAP.

This rationed treatment that you talk about. Is it the same for everyone? Or do famous
athletes, as opposed to non-famous, and the rich and privledged get a bigger ration
than the brickey? Or could the brickey get the same treatment as the concert pianist
if he wanted it? I'm really not trying to be a smart ass with these last questions but you
have got my curiousity up. Probably because I'm from the US and not to familiar with
your system(the NHS).

Dennis Noward

Dr_Death

Same treatment for everyone, based on need not ability to pay. I always tell people about the different management options and try to help them reach the best decision for them; I can't tell you this always happens coz I know it doesn't.

Also most of the rich/famous sportsmen and women will have some sort of private health insurance and would get their injuries treated that way (not always the best IMHO).