GP displaying family photos, children's pictures dedicated to 'daddy' or 'mummy'

I understand it must be upsetting to be triggered all the time but that’s life. You can’t expect every one to hide themselves because you’re suffering from something. It’s hard when you’re in that frame of mind to snap out of it but it’s very selfish to expect others to tip toe around you all the time.

Our GP has a children's corner in the waiting room, with pictures they've coloured on the wall. Children are at the supermarket, pregnant women in society everywhere, we have to drive past schools, they're in the media, everywhere. So I don't see what difference it makes for a GP to have family photos and pictures up. You can't pretend families and children don't exist.

We all have things we find painful due to personal experience. We just have to deal with them as the world goes on around us.

I've read it all now 🙄

YABVU.

I can see why it would be upsetting but YABU. The world doesn’t stop turning, there will be children in the waiting room too potentially.

I am surprised as I would have thought keeping your relationship with your patients is strictly professional and having personal photos is telling your patients a lot about yourself

I can’t remember seeing any personal photos at ny gp’s

im sorry its painful for you op

But gently, this woman will be seeing pictures of kids /actual kids and pregnant women...!!

It's the hideousbess of infertility.

I don't think professionals should not be able to have pictures of their kids as a result!

I had issues carrying babies. I was never once upset at anyone else having a family. I was glad they hadn't had to suffer like i did.

In regards to them being on display in GPs room I actually really like it. As someone who doesn't like going to the doctors I feel like it provides you with a bit of a distraction and makes you feel more on a level with them.

Sorry your friends daughter is going through a tough time.

Ludicrous.

Every time she leaves the house she will see families and other evidence of people's "fertility".

Does she avoid her friend who gave children or are they offensive to her?

Bloody schools everywhere you go, full of children to upset her. Close them all!

Ridiculous.

As somebody who's been through failed IVF attempts and now has an adopted dd you seriously need to get a grip. There is no malicious intent with these pictures. It's not fair or realistic to expect people to hide children and their own lived experiences from somebody because they can't have children. It's baffling that anyone could be so self-absorbed that they think otherwise

Children are "everywhere" though. That's a fact of life.

Even if the GP had no trace of their own children in their consulting room your friends DIL could easily still have been upset by seeing toys and childrens books in the waiting room, most surgeries have some for kids to play with. She could have seen a heavily pregnant woman walking out after an appointment with the midwife, or a woman with a baby walking out just as she was walking in.
She could have overhead a crying child having their immunisation in the next consulting room. My GP surgery has posters featuring pregnant women and babies about the whooping cough vaccine. Perhaps they shouldn't be allowed either?

This reminds me of a similarly insane exchange I witnessed recently. A woman was told not to breastfeed in public - not because the complainer was offended by the nip, but because the complainer hadn’t been able to breastfeed and found it “triggering” to watch someone doing so successfully.
This modern fascination with hiding everything that might upset someone is bizarre.
Coming from someone who has had 3MCs.

I’m a GP; two of my GP colleagues, who have photos of their children in their rooms, suffered from subfertility. Requiring mutilple IVF courses. Another GP I worked with needed surrogacy due to abnormal anatomy of her uterus. Yes, she has photos in her room. GPs are still human and have all the struggles that every one else entails.

Overly sensitive.

Imagine if they saw an actual family walking around outdoors....

I say this as the partner of a GP who has had stillbirths and miscarriages (and has photos of the kids in her office), people need to get back to accepting that real life does have painful moments, but coping with them is part of that.

I'm a teacher and have family photos on my desk, I think it depends largely on the organisation and space, if you have a desk that is always yours and your organisation is OK with the personal touch, its fine.

A colleague of mine has a photo of his wife on his desk, he got so many questions about her from his year 12 tutor group that he brought her in to a tutor period to meet them, she incidentally is a GP.

So sorry for both your losses. My GP has photos of her dc on display. Dh did too when he worked in an office. My dad did too, although I used to moan that his photo of me was very out of date. Even more so when he proudly displayed a photo of my newborn ds1 next to the one of me aged 12!

I think most people put photos of their dc up, unless they are working with people who are dangerous.

I recall when I was younger my family GP used to have pictures his patients drew pinned up on the walls. Made things much less scary for tiny me when I could colour a picture that he would have on the walls the next time I visited!

I think is a her problem, i don’t see why at their desk they can’t have things from their children, how often are people going to be so upset by it? Your friend has to be in the world and see children

You are wrong to assume the GP hasn't had fertility issues. My dd was conceived after a fertility battle, you would never know unless I told you.
My fertility clinic has a huge display board of pics babies they made. That could be more insensitive, given that failure is a more likely outcome of treatment.

True. My last boss could not have children herself but displayed photos of her neice and nephew on her desk.

I'm not a gp but I work long hours as well and there's plenty of nights where I leave in the morning and I don't see my child awake again until the next morning for 30 minutes before I'm out the door again. So yes I have photos of him on my desk and on my wall and a little of his artwork and it reminds me on the bad or heavy days that he is ultimately who I work for and I miss him during the day. People are not robots.

Obviously infertility (which I also struggled with) is extremely difficult, but it's just a shitty part of being dealt that hand, that you're faced with the thing you desperately want every day, all the time. But the idea that people should basically pretend they aren't parents is actually extremely entitled thinking. You have zero idea of that gps circumstances- perhaps they've also been through infertility and adopted their kids or had difficult and expensive invasive treatments - never mind how many MCs in between. Should female GPs not come to work when pregnant? What about the children you see with their parents in the waiting room? How far realistically do you take that?

Obviously she's in the thick of something awful and I do have massive sympathy for her and anyone else going through it and I understand it can be all consuming but part of moving through that grief is learning that this is something she will be confronted with repeatedly, and it absolutely sucks, but there comes a point where you've no choice but to find a place of acceptance with it. That takes a lot of time and support to do but I wouldn't be facilitating the notion that others need to hide parts of themselves, instead focus on how she's doing and where she's at.

I don't have or want children so most likely won't ever know the pain of infertility/miscarriage and my heart is with anyone experiencing that because it seems like hell. But gently, another way of looking at it could be that those GPs clearly love and cherish their children and understand how much being a parent means to some. They also may have experienced similar issues- lots of women have miscarriages.

YABU.

Im sorry for all that you went through but just because you have had trouble conceiving doesn’t mean other people should have to hide their children away. What you’re going through is not other people’s fault.

Everyone is allowed to feel how they want to feel but some feelings should be kept to themselves instead of expecting everyone else to change to suit one persons feelings

The children could be adopted

Or through surrogacy

Or step children

(I’ve also experienced 12 yrs of infertility and it may have upset me on a bad day but not to the point where I would criticise the GP for having the pictures)