To wonder whether gaslighting is part of the UK medical curriculum?

I'll add gynaecologists who see women as a kind of child, to be manipulated into the stirrups without proper explanation or warning and then subjected to excruciating and unexpected surgery without anaesthetic.

And the number of them who are female just astounds me.

The medical profession is the natural habitat of intellectual arrogance.

I think AI would assist with diagnosis as it can come up with results for symptoms that stretch beyond viral, anxiety, menopause, depression etc. It makes you wonder what their training actually is for if they then ignore 90% of it once qualified. Very poor value for money. They'll soon do themselves out of a job if this poor performance continues. AI algorithms could come up with a list of possible diagnoses if symptoms are described. Tests could then narrow it down and a treatment algorithm followed rather than just flinging paracetamol or antidepressants at everything. Surgeons might still be needed because they have technical skills that a robot wouldn't have, but other types of doctor could easily be phased out and replaced.

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2024/12/03/ai-diagnosis-ec

It seems doctors can't even effectively use AI to assist in diagnosis.

Ha ! I dont think it's on the curriculum. But it's such standard practice that new recruits adopt it as routine!

My sister got offered a psychiatrist for her interstitial cystitis. She was in agony. Because it wasn’t showing on the urine tests, ‘of course’ it had to be that she was nuts.

I took my son from a few months old to the age of 4 to the GP, A and E and two consultants, telling them that he was having nocturnal seizures. I recorded them on my phone, recorded them in a diary, explained in detail what his symptoms were, etc but got told that I was ‘overly anxious as a first time mum’.

The same consultant who told me that he definitely didn’t have epilepsy, told me that he did nine months later when my child collapsed at the side of the road with a full tonic clonic seizure and I had to flag a car down to ring an ambulance. The thing is, by the time he got diagnosed and put on meds (with horrible side effects), I’d just had a baby. The timing of my eldest child’s diagnosis and the birth of my new baby contributed to dreadful postnatal depression which could have been avoided if the doctors had listened to me in the first place.

Most people that GPs see haven't got a serious illness. They have to pick out a needle in a haystack. I'm not saying some aren't rude, dismissive etc, but most GPs will see e.g. one teenager with cancer in their whole career, and hundreds of thousands of teenagers with similar presentations who haven't. I don't know what the answer is but it's easy with hindsight to say 'x y z symptoms were obviously cancer' after you know it's cancer (insert other serious condition as applicable).

I'm in the complete opposite situation. My gp would refer me for a paper cut! I pretty much dread a check-up because I know how many hospital appointments it might lead to. Thorough is not the word for it! I'm in Ireland if that makes a difference.

My DD had a infected chalazion cyst that was red angry and oozing pus after a long wait to see the ophthalmologist he couldn't have been more dismissive. His follow up letter was also full of inaccuracies. Fortunately our brilliant GP agreed that is wasn't good enough and referred us to another hospital for a second opinion where they agreed she needed treatment but it was a long wait to get to that point, with my 4 year old DD in pain with not treatment for 6 months.

It wasn't life threatening but I am sure it was painful. I complained about the first ophthalmologist but I hold out no hope that it improved his attitude.

Similarly I have struggled to get treatment for a persistent uti which I was told was normal as cultures didn't grow anything even though NHS guidelines state that symptoms should be used as a diagnosis and tests are notoriously unreliable. I ended up having to pay a fortune to get private treatment.

I have absolutely not faith in the NHS. The attitude of doctors if you do your own research and question them leaves a lot to be desired.

You're going to see far more people in FB groups who were denied coverage than people whose insurance companies gave the thumbs up though.

I also know someone who had to take her baby back to the GP endlessly before being referred for a scan that showed a very rare cancer with extremely low survival rates.
Obviously I understand that the vast vast majority of children the GP sees will not have a rare cancer and an element of probability needs to be considered when looking at a patient. But the range and severity of symptoms that were repeatedly dismissed as “viral” was shocking. “It’s just viral” was essentially “can you just go away now”.

I used to see this behaviour in nursing as well. I'd report that Mr X appeared to be developing a chest infection or whatever when I did the handover after a nightshift. I'd ask for him to be seen by a GP then I'd be met with "well he was fine yesterday, I'll just give him some paracetamol to get his temperature down" 🤦🏼‍♀️ of course I'd return that night and Mr X would now be quite ill and need an ambulance to A&E during the night (invariably on a weekend). This was a regular occurrence. I think they'd do it to save themselves work. I've also noticed that NT people are more likely to display denial than ND people. I don't know if it's a feature of their neurotype, but many are very avoidant. Some people are just lazy and can't be bothered as well.

The worst culprit:

"It's nothing to worry about - aches and pains are to be expected at your age"

I think that minimising and unnecessarily strict gatekeeping by GPs seems to be NHS policy. The wait to see specialists and the delay in getting tests must cause the NHS billions and people can be in severe pain or worse in the mean time.

It’s pretty archaic that patients have to rely on the GP remembering to refer someone and waiting for contact from the hospital than being able to check the referral was done in the first place.

Care was better once we got access to the specialists but the long inefficient process of getting there is frustrating.

I am grateful that my practice surgery has nurse practitioners who are easier to get an appointment with and have better social skills than the GPs at my practice.

The inefficient appointment system is also madness. Many must be getting sicker by not being able to access medical help and despite politicians making noises about this is which would be popular with voters, nothing has changed

You see a good few posts on MN urging people not to "burden" the NHS with their broken ankle, blinding headaches, severe breathing difficulties, unexplained bleeding during pregnancy - I'm exaggerating here but only slightly.

I have friends and family in the UK who have been fobbed off by doctors too, two of whom turned out to have serious conditions. They survived - in one case cancer and in the other a lengthy misdiagnosis of coeliac disease while the patient was treated for all sorts of nonsensical other 'diagnoses', including psychiatric issues, when testing would have revealed the real problem. Neither ever trusted the NHS again. They felt that they were dealing with HCPs who had the same attitude, that the NHS must not be burdened and they were the gatekeepers charged with the important role of allowing people with real problems to be given the appropriate tests.

The craziness of not doing appropriate tests first to rule out serious problems is something that still makes them bang their heads on their desks.

I read a BBC article today about failures in reading and assessing scans and x-rays, and incomprehensible refusals to refer for CT or MRI scans despite ample evidence of conditions needing further investigation. Quite a few patients died because of the failures.

The compensation amounts offered to bereaved families were derisory. I'm in the US, not exactly the poster child for efficient or accessible health care, but those issues aside, doctors here order tests and biopsies and detailed scans. It's something that is often cited here as a problem with American medicine. Insane!

Part of the reason for the attention to detail is the threat of lawsuits. Payouts for wrongful death can run to many millions $$$.

Another part of the reason is that there is no overarching scarcity mindset, allied with acceptance of the scientific rationale that testing that yields concrete evidence is the foundation on which treatment should be built.

YANBU. My lovely neighbour kept going to the doctor about a pain in her leg. She was fobbed off for several years, until eventually it was discovered that she had bone cancer. It had spread too far and was terminal. If only the doctor had listened to her in the first place, they might have found it sooner, and while still treatable.

It's what the NHS is like sadly. This is why we go private

I’ve incorrectly voted for YABU but should be YANBU.

When presented with video footage of my son having recurrent night seizures following a near fatal tonic clonic seizure, his paediatrician dismissed my concerns and I had to push for tests and referral to a neurologist.

Despite my son having a neonatal brain injury, a history of neonatal seizures, video footage of seizures, on different occasions, and a recent hospital admission for a serious seizure - they still wouldn’t refer to a neurologist without push back.

This was from an experienced community neurodisability paediatrician who couldn’t seemingly recognise the clinical signs of epilepsy.

Turns out he has complex epilepsy and would have likely died or experienced increased cognitive decline without intervention.

YANBU

I’m sorry you had to go through this. I thought the brain tumour thread got pulled for being a troll, but maybe I’m misremembering?

I can’t say my experience has been anything like yours. Currently going through treatment for cancer and everyone I’ve encountered from my initial surgical teams, all the staff on the wards when I’ve had to stay over, to my oncology team to all the various CT, MRI, PET scan staff have been nothing but wonderful.

Things happen quickly. Everyone has been very kind and supportive. I get whisked right onto the ward whenever I have a flare up of something. Our hospital is not a big fancy one, and served a huge and varied catchment, some of it quite deprived, so it’s not just because it’s a posh area. I’ve just been treated so nicely, even when I can tell they are at breaking point. I feel very grateful.

My first experience of medical gaslighting was when a classmate died from a brain tumour at just 16 years old whose excruciating headaches had been fobbed off by doctors with ‘its hormones’ for over a year. That was over 40 years ago.

Sadly things haven’t improved and recent family experiences have been a pulmonary embolism diagnosed as heartburn, a deep vein thrombosis as calf sprain and heart failure and Parkinson’s dismissed as anxiety.

I believe I’ve got a better chance of survival by staying as far away from ‘medical professionals’ as possible.