Diesel

Big kidney vicinity type pains. GP sends her to have a scan, but the hospital say there is a 5 month waiting list, and sends her packing. Back to doc who then requests a solution from patient - great! Antibiotics then given for bladder infection which was clearly bollox. Sent her to my GP, and she says it is a muscle sprain in the back and ditch the tabs.

How crap can a doctor be? If this was a Scooby performance part supplier we'd all have a go; but it wasn't it was for something much more important - possible kidney problems.

Can you moan to some Health body for professional ambivalence and clear disregard for patients best interests? Doctors who are in it to impress their family for 'doing so well' rather than in it to help patients are too common, and I'm sick of it.

Timmy Tato

Don't know if this is any help - try the General Medical Council - I think that they are the official bods who can strike GP's off for malpractice etc.

Other idea is to try the Citizens Advice Bureau and they can out you in touch with someone or change your GP - or if you have private medical cover through work then get it extended to nearest & dearest...

Hope some of this works out.

Doc

Firstly, there are crap people in all professions. Your account may be absolutely correct but we are only hearing one side of the story.

If her GP referred her for a "scan" (I assume an ultrasound scan) as an outpatient they would have sent the request to the hospital and an appointment would have been sent out if the request could be justified by the clinical details on the form. If things were more urgent requiring immediate treatment then the GP should have referred her to the relevant team on call.

Personally I don't know anyone who is in medicine to "impress their family" its too much like hard work for bullsh1t like that. You try telling someone their nearest and dearest is about to die and that there is nothing anyone can do but make them comfortable.
Or dealing with some abusive drunk in casualty who wants to either hit you or puke on you.


Getting back to the point.
Did they test (dipstick) her urine? Was there blood in it?
Was her pain from loin to groin?
Was it the sort of pain where you can't keep still?

If yes to the above then it sounds like renal colic (kidney stones)and needs further investigation.

However urine infections are very common in women and can cause severe pain. There may also be blood and protein in the urine on testing. Antibiotics would be appropriate.

Hope she is better.

SimonH

Rant on.

Whilst I sympathise with your predicament I object to your comments regarding members of the medical profession.

I am not a doctor myself (I drive aircraft, so have to deal with the moronic self loading freight instead) however my wife is. She's obviously in it to impress the family. She used to do this by starting her weekend hospital on-call at 0900 on a Friday (after a full 9-5 week anyway) and finishing about 1500 on the following Monday (to be back in at 0900 on Tuesday of course).
How we used to laugh as she'd ring me from a lay-by late Monday afternoon after she'd had to stop and sleep in her car there as she'd been too tired to drive any further.

As Doc says above, there are fools in all professions. However the vast majority of medics I know are hard working, conscientious people who's only reward for slogging their guts out in a decrepit, underfunded system is yet more bitching from people who are medical experts after having seen two episodes of ER.

Rant off.

brendy

Agree with the above - no one is in it for the recognition for ****s sake you always have someone in the pub asking you to look at them and then getting stroppy when you explain it is your first weekend off in a month and you are not interested!!
In case you are not aware the human body is not a simple machine and this is why diagnosis can be difficult and not always straightforward.

Diesel

Can I thank you for your replies. This small icident was very upsetting for my missus, and she is still off work with the pain - so any feedback helps.

I am not going to argue with you about medicine in general or ALL medical staff; just this one issue coupled to being 'mis'-treated similarly by a UK GP recently, which later left me with a big medical bill in the USA...

This guy I'm complaining about was dismissive, inaccurate, didn't know the system and was both apathetic and circumspect. I have no intention of offending medical professionals, but I will tell it like it is when anyone gives bad service; those are TERRIBLE adjectives to use regarding a plumber, let alone a GP, whose stakes are higher. He was sat down in a warm surgery, trying to get through the patients as quick as he could, to their detriment, so cut the violins over house doctors working absurd 72hr shifts - it's just not relevant HERE.

Doc Asked:
Did they test (dipstick) her urine? NO.
Was there blood in it? NO
Was her pain from loin to groin? NO
Was it the sort of pain where you can't keep still? NO

(No calculus I suppose then?)

I sent her to my GP (who has my normal graditude, complete respect & admiration due to being both professional and thorough) and the pain was in fact too high for the kidney (the other guy didn't even examine her...). Deemed to be muscular then...

Guys, I understand and expect your resentement and anger at my previous provocative statement, but I still think, being as PC as possible, SOME people go into medicine due to pressure from their families rather than an inate desire for medicine/healing, and maybe this recently experienced sort of apathy can result VERY VERY OCASSIONALLY? It is clearly possible, and I believe that, as it is my experience unfortunately. This does nothing to change the obvious respect due to the professionals and good guys in all lines of work.

Thanks for your feedback.

D

SimonH

Notwithstanding your other comments I for one strongly object to your use of the word “violins”. It’s not “violins” just a statement of fact. I’m not (nor are most doctors) seeking the sympathy of joe public for the criminally long hours my wife and her peers have to work. I just object to the instant-gratification society we live in whereby every man and his dog seems to think that they are entitled to instant treatment and cure in a system that pays it’s night shift cleaners a higher hourly rate than it’s night shift junior doctors.

It’s very possible in your case that the GP you first saw was an idle git. Indeed my wife has a pretty low opinion of some GPs as she has to deal with all their referrals. That said I still don’t see what your banging on about with all this “went into medicine to impress their families” nonsense. Maybe their families should be impressed that they stick out 5 years of med school plus the interminable house jobs and on the job training that follows. I’m afraid I think you’re making a non-point. You would’ve got a completely different response to your initial post had you left out the last sentence.

Going slightly off the direct subject but the fact that you refer to the predicament of junior doctors as being a “violins” sob story smacks greatly of compassion fatigue on your behalf. You’ve all heard it all before, blah blah, isn’t it sad? Well, yes it is. You’re all quite happy to ignore the pleas of vastly overworked medical staffs because it’s boring, however when it suddenly affects you (generic “you”) you’re all up in arms suing the poor ******* who made a genuine human error mistake, probably because s/he had 2 hours sleep in the last week or something equally crap. It’s just sad fact that this is indicative of the society we live in. Someone makes a genuine human error; who can I sue?
Like I said, sorry for going off the point.

Anyway in answer to your original point, the GMC can deal with your original GP if you believe him to genuinely be duff.

Lime

Why is it that people in the Medical profession think that they are the only ones who get treated badly in the workplace?
How many of the night cleaners would gladly swap there pay for what Dr's will be on after a few years.
It is quite simple really if you don't like what goes with the job then don't take it up.

In my own experience of the Ward Nurses that I have seen in Hospitals, most of the time they stand around chatting to each other about where they are going at the Weekend what holiday plans they have ignoring patients and when they do speak to the patients they are ment to be looking after they don't listen to what they have to say as they are so busy trying to make up the time they have lost by having a good old gossip.
The lack of competent medical treatment my family has received in the last 5 years is a disgrace. What has been at fault in all these situations has been the service providers and not the lack of equipment or facility's.
This bad treatment has been received from GPs, Consultants and Nurses.
Of course every time someone dares to question the view or treatment received from the medical "professionals" or bucks the "PC" trend of how wonderful they all are they are automatically tarred with the same brush as the pissheads in A+E on a Friday and Saturday night and so are forced to stop complaining for fear of being refused any treatment at all.

But then again maybe I have got it all wrong and it is just the fact that so much medical negligence has happened to my Family that I seem to be bitter and twisted.
Sorry about the RANT! I feel much better now

Now about the headaches I keep getting........

zoog

Back pain is often psychosomatic -perhaps a referral to the local psychiatrist might have been more appropriate? ;-)

Bin Laden

Lime

Keep taking the tablets.

zoog

The on- call hourly pay rate for junior doctors on our 72 hour shifts was LESS than the cleaners hourly rate, if you want to start comparing wages. And that was 72 hours constant work with no break and no sleep or at best only snatched sleep for less than 1-2 hours at a time.

It's little wonder mistakes are made in hospitals when you've got sleep deprived people looking after other's lives.

GP consultations are 10 minute max. because there are few GPs and lots of patients.

Diesel

What a can of worms! I admire your heartfelt passion Simon, but mate, you should be addressing your concerns to someone who can DO something about it and not having a go at me for being some kind of heartless b@stard caught in the middle of it all! I can do nothing except pay our 1.5K + taxes a month and then whinge when me or my missus gets treated like just another irritating piece of meat and fobbed off etc – as I would with any other service I’d paid for, and expected better from…

As you know, you are possibly emotionally interpreting my specific mail as a direct attack on someone close to you, and further developing this non-fact into a comment on an 'instant gratification society'. I'm going to neither place with you. You also develop my whinge into a comment on a litigation happy society. Clearly these are issues that bother you, but don't vent my spleen through yours - or should that be the anterior way around Comment is clearly fine, but in this context it does tend to tar me with an inappropriate and undeserved brush.

Please remember that all I asked was how to do something about a bad GP, and Lime later makes the point (the one that I am getting hammered for here) that these people are not untouchables. Medical people have historically and deservedly received a lot of reverence, but just sometimes some 'git' like me will kick up, which is clearly unsettling. Do get it in perspective though - I’m sure most decent people perceive most medics as an angels rather than as 'idle gits'. I know I do.

I'm leaving my comment on 'only in it now 4 the kudos GP's'. Clearly this is un-broachable due to the profession involved. I assure you that similar traits are to be found elsewhere in society and in other professions.


[Edited by Diesel - 4/19/2002 4:17:49 PM]

SimonH

Diesel

I didn't mean to get all high and mighty nor did I intend to direct my spleen-venting at you. Apologies if taken as such.

I am well aware that such traits exist in other professions and society at large. As said, I'm a pilot by profession (albeit military) - there are many people who enjoy the kudos of being a pilot and strutting through terminals wearing their big hat and carrying their big flight case.
Aviation is a profession where, by and large, if you throw enough money at it you can eventually get the qualifications you want. Medicine isn't; but then I think I'm becoming tedious so will knock it on the head

Lime

Whatever