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Original post by madfish
As soon as I see a doctor I think...."oh...you must of had pushy parents.."



Yes, very probably, especially as you posted earlier that you want them to have got all A*s instead of crappy A's.

It's touching that you have such faith in the A-level system to select the best clinicians.

p.s. it's 'must HAVE had', not 'must of had'. Get it right. Chemical engineers should be able to write in English without making sub-GCSE mistakes.
Reply 101
Original post by jimbo139
Yes, very probably, especially as you posted earlier that you want them to have got all A*s instead of crappy A's.

It's touching that you have such faith in the A-level system to select the best clinicians.

p.s. it's 'must HAVE had', not 'must of had'. Get it right. Chemical engineers should be able to write in English without making sub-GCSE mistakes.

I am not a Chemical engineer...

For the record... English is not and never has been my strong point.. I will openly admit that

But I don't see why you criticized my English? What has it got to do with anything I said?

And I doubt pushy parents could push their child to get A*A*AA.. It's only the naturally intelligent get that and not the obedient little rote learners..

Have you got nothing relevant to say in relation to this debate?
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by madfish
You're either a medical student, or just a little bit stupid...


That doesn't even make sense. Way to make an insulting generalization about an entire profession, especially when you don't know the first bit about the thousands of medical students and doctors out there.

I think I'm out of troll feed now.
Reply 103
Original post by Mushi_master
That doesn't even make sense. Way to make an insulting generalization about an entire profession, especially when you don't know the first bit about the thousands of medical students and doctors out there.

I think I'm out of troll feed now.

Slan go foil!
Original post by madfish
Slan go foil!


Is that even a phrase? I don't even...
Reply 105
Original post by Mushi_master
Is that even a phrase? I don't even...

Google it
GPGPGP
Reply 107
Original post by MENDACIUM
Me being a doctor myself is not relevant here. The fact is i have received barely any help or support, and G.P's can't offer me any help , support, or advise for my ilness.

Many of my friends have had similar experiences.


You are not a doctor.

And although some of your points are valid, from the sounds of things you're going to have a shock when you get to medschool.
I do agree with you OP to an extent. My grandma was showing every sign of lung cancer that there was. She used to be a smoker, she caught every bug going ever, constantly had the flu, was wheezing but was given inhalers. She went to the doctors every week for 13 weeks and the idiot GP didn't once think to ask for a blood test/x ray etc. It was only when she had a stroke that they discovered it.

I've also in the past year been given what must be about 14 different antibiotics, for recurrent UTI's/ear infections/eye infections/chest infections. I go and just get given a course of them and thats it. I've asked on multiple occassions is it normal to be having so many UTI's/ear infections, should I not be investigated, and the answer is I'm stressed so my immune system is low.

However I have found a great doctor. He only works 9-12 on a Wednesday morning so every month when I have to see him it means I have to drop everything that morning but he asks me how I'm getting on, how I think things are going, how is my counselling going, he answers with clarity any questions I have, and is always jolly and kind, upbeat. Not all GP's are as incompetent , but I think a lot of the time the reason why so many doctors seem so impersonal, rushed, unfriendly is because they are under so much pressure to keep to time and targets etc. Although the doctor who owns my practice is notorious for taking her time. To the extent where peoples appointments are a couple of hours behind, and her arguement is if they are that ill, it shouldnt matter to them how long they have to wait they shouldnt have anything to rush off to haha.
Well considering gp's mostly have to just diagnose the sniffles and also considering how broad some symptoms are I'd cut them slack...
Original post by MattKneale
You've missed our point. You can't have shadowed any more than, realistically, 10 GPs at an absolute maximum. Even if you had shadowed 50 GPs and found many to be incompetent, that still does not mirror the entire state of GP services.

Your bad experiences are not sufficient to label all GPs as ****. Not even a majority.

You're showing ignorance by not accepting that, and by thinking you could do a better job in a similar instance. You clearly do not understand the budgetary constraints GPs are under, either. They cannot refer every single case to a specialist.

If his experiences aren't statistically significant enough to make the judgements he is making, what are your experiences that are significant enough to make the judgement that his story is unlikely?
Original post by The Troll Toll
If his experiences aren't statistically significant enough to make the judgements he is making, what are your experiences that are significant enough to make the judgement that his story is unlikely?


Thankfully that is not my burden; the OP is hypothesising that GPs are useless and that his experiences prove it. It is up to him to prove that GPs are terrible, not me to prove they are good.

As it happens, though, GP performance is monitored internally within surgeries but also on a larger scale externally. If they were as terrible as he makes out, we'd undoubtedly see a lot more deaths and action would be taken.
Original post by MattKneale
Thankfully that is not my burden; the OP is hypothesising that GPs are useless and that his experiences prove it. It is up to him to prove that GPs are terrible, not me to prove they are good.

As it happens, though, GP performance is monitored internally within surgeries but also on a larger scale externally. If they were as terrible as he makes out, we'd undoubtedly see a lot more deaths and action would be taken.


There are a couple of discrete claims going on in this thread: the OP's claim that some GPs are useless, worse than useless, unprofessional, unfriendly/all of the above (he has taken pains to point out that he doesn't believe this applies to all or even most GPs). Then there is your claim that his stories are unlikely to be true, and you have the burden of evidence for that.
Original post by The Troll Toll
There are a couple of discrete claims going on in this thread: the OP's claim that some GPs are useless, worse than useless, unprofessional, unfriendly/all of the above (he has taken pains to point out that he doesn't believe this applies to all or even most GPs). Then there is your claim that his stories are unlikely to be true, and you have the burden of evidence for that.


I feel like you've missed Matt's point.

Yes, he has personal experience of a bad GP. That's true. And yes he has pointed out that he doesn't believe this applies to all GPs, but he does believe it applies to a sizeable proportion of GPs.

That's still a bold assertion and a generalisation that cannot be rested on anecdotal experience.

All that can really be said is he found his experience with his GPs bad. Not that those GPs are always bad or that other GPs are bad. Obviously we know, intuitively, that this is probably the case . . . but still.
(edited 11 years ago)
I agree OP.
I have been diagnosed with POTS and neurocardiogenic syncope, though it took about 5 years to get diagnosed properly and in that time I got progressively worse.
It took me about 7 different GPs to give me their opinions on what I had, all of them massively varied from anxiety, anaemia and epilepsy. It wasn't until I finally got seen by a cardiologist and had a tilt table test that they were able to diagnose me and get me on the right medication to stop me collapsing (as often!) and now there's talk of a pacemaker.

I feel your pain, but remember, these conditions are rare, and not every GP will have come across it before, so naturally they will try to stick to what they know that admit that they are out of their depth.
Original post by Blorcyn
I feel like you've missed Matt's point.

Yes, he has personal experience of a bad GP. That's true. And yes he has pointed out that he doesn't believe this applies to all GPs, but he does believe it applies to a sizeable proportion of GPs.

That's still a bold assertion and a generalisation that cannot be rested on anecdotal experience.

All that can really be said is he found his experience with his GPs bad. Not that those GPs are always bad or that other GPs are bad. Obviously we know, intuitively, that this is probably the case . . . but still.

I haven't missed anyone's point, but I think you may have missed mine. I am not arguing that a sizeable proportion of GPs are bad (although it wouldn't surprise me if they were), I was just pointing out that you can't say he's probably lying unless you have some sort of evidence, and when you make that kind of claim the burden of proof switches to you.

More generally, I am against the vitriol with which doctors tend to be defended on this forum. In any other industry the customer is considered to have a perfectly valid opinion on whether he was treated well and with adequate professionalism. Suddenly if someone comments like that on a doctor you get a lot of people saying that attitude (what attitude - critical thinking?) will make him a terrible doctor, he is probably an idiot who self-diagnosed, or maybe a liar, and the doctor must be right. I'm not assigning this exact stance to you or even Matt (although Matt did accuse OP of lying) but it is quite prevalent here.
Original post by The Troll Toll
I haven't missed anyone's point, but I think you may have missed mine. I am not arguing that a sizeable proportion of GPs are bad (although it wouldn't surprise me if they were), I was just pointing out that you can't say he's probably lying unless you have some sort of evidence, and when you make that kind of claim the burden of proof switches to you.


Except that's patently not true; the existence of internal and external quality controls, which rely not on experiences but on statistical evidence, suggest all GPs, and indeed most, are not bad. In fact you could argue the long-standing and continued existence of the GP profession is testament to it's (on the whole) quality.

Statistical evidence outweighs personal experience, and if it didn't, well my GP is great and hence the OP is obviously lying... :wink:

More generally, I am against the vitriol with which doctors tend to be defended on this forum. In any other industry the customer is considered to have a perfectly valid opinion on whether he was treated well and with adequate professionalism. Suddenly if someone comments like that on a doctor you get a lot of people saying that attitude (what attitude - critical thinking?) will make him a terrible doctor, he is probably an idiot who self-diagnosed, or maybe a liar, and the doctor must be right. I'm not assigning this exact stance to you or even Matt (although Matt did accuse OP of lying) but it is quite prevalent here.


Well I don't think that's at all true either given the reactions on this post; many seem to agree with the OP that GPs appear, on the whole, incompetent. Fortunately this is not true statistically (give me some time to drum up some for you) and GPs on the whole are very effective at relaying serious medical illnesses to hospital, and are also effective at treating more minor ailments themselves.

There is no defending of physicians here other than that which is fairly due to them. Doctors have to meet very strict requirements, both in qualification and in practice, and do so under very pressured circumstances. To blame them for making occasional mistakes is not duly fair; if they were making constant, statistically provable errors then they'd rightly be called to the GMC. Those that aren't probably aren't as bad as you think. (Like your post this isn't a you, you; it's a general you people!)

This leaves aside the massive bias that most people have in that they think they know better than the GP. Many go with a cough and demand antibiotics despite it evidently being a cold. Is it any wonder some GPs are making errors when they're constantly trying to exclude whingy, well patients from those with severe illnesses?
Original post by crazyunicorn133
I agree OP.
I have been diagnosed with POTS and neurocardiogenic syncope, though it took about 5 years to get diagnosed properly and in that time I got progressively worse.
It took me about 7 different GPs to give me their opinions on what I had, all of them massively varied from anxiety, anaemia and epilepsy. It wasn't until I finally got seen by a cardiologist and had a tilt table test that they were able to diagnose me and get me on the right medication to stop me collapsing (as often!) and now there's talk of a pacemaker.

I feel your pain, but remember, these conditions are rare, and not every GP will have come across it before, so naturally they will try to stick to what they know that admit that they are out of their depth.


The number of people who present to their GP after experiencing a simple faint (or following a few of them) is phenomenal. The vast majority of these patients will infact have no physical diagnosis, and the cause will often be anxiety or simply skipping breakfast. To distinguish between those with this problem and those who need a tilt-table test is incredibly difficult, and would generally require multiple or unusual presentations of the same problem, and even then the majority of tests will be normal (or infact demonstrate an anxiety phenomenon).

In short, I'm glad you have a diagnosis and I'm sorry it took a while, but this is in no way suggestive of the GP's incompetence and in no way a story that you can use as an example of how bad a few doctors are, and you certainly can't generalise from an exceptionally unusual and difficult example.
Reply 118
Guy guys,

GP's are PROFESSIONALS, they do a great deal of hard and important studying to get into the profession. There are no better people to diagnose and treat you, they are inspirational. and cle...... ok I can't keep this up...
Reply 119
Original post by hslt
You are not a doctor.

And although some of your points are valid, from the sounds of things you're going to have a shock when you get to medschool.


Well, if I go into medical school and am taught to not know of basic conditions like SVT which my patients ask me to explain, to not show them respect, to tell them to go away, to misdiagnose them, to not give them support, to seem disinterested, to not admit making mistakes, then I sure will be surprised.

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