I am a "very pleasant lady"

[HauntedBungalow]

... according to the consultant who wrote to my GP following an appointment. It says so on the first line of the letter.

I was feeling quite chuffed about this but when I told my cynical piss taking 21 yo son he said it probably meant I was a bit dozy. Surely not!

Does anyone know if "very pleasant lady" means fragrant and nice, or if it means thick?

I've obviously disinherited the son, regardless. (Not so dozy now am I? Twat.)

I'd hazard a guess that Kemi is a lot more pleasant than you are.

I work in forensic psychiatry and rarely if ever get a ‘pleasant’ person!

(understandably, I work with sex offenders, amongst other crimes).

Interesting, challenging, high intensity, highly dependent, high level of need … or more straight to the point, patient with a prolonged history of severe and enduring illness with x number of prison stays!

😂 this would be me too

Don't generally remember what is in doctors letters apart from the important bits but I do remember being described as "well informed" once. I'd moved, had to see someone new and he kept asking me what a previous consultant (nationally known expert) had said. It was obvious that the new consultant didnt know his subject half as well so I did feel better informed than he was. I had to explain not only what I'd been told previously but the reasons the consultant gave for saying that.

Love the vet that draws a crocodile on the bitey ones!

My cat with skin allergies has 'this adorable young adult female' on her notes. She's actually extremely feisty and can be quite challenging, but for some reason she loves her vet. She'll be cuddling and loving on her in the exam room.

It's always interesting that murdering a few people personally is heinous but complicity in large scale death gets a pass

It's definitely "doctor speak", I think it just means you were nice and co-operative and reassures the receiving consultant that you're not batshit crazy and are reasonable! I was a "pleasant, older lady" recently! So things could have been worse for you OP!

Yes I suppose it could mean that.

MIL always though had it on her GP letter and she was definitely from anger. Only was on blood pressure medication.

Why say "elderly" or "older"? Surely the date of both is on the records, so they could (and should) check the date of birth rather than relying on a woolly "older" that can mean anything.

Why say "lady" or "gentlemen"? Likewise, gender/sex should be on the records.

I get 'Miss x has a complex history of...' I dread to think what that means?

It means it’s not a simple case. Some people have something simple to fix but other conditions prevent it being straight forward.

What’s doctor speak for ‘well-informed’

They’ll need to watch out for those Freedom of Information Requests
They’ll have to admit what these codes mean

circling the drain is making light of death and sounds really nasty.

No, it's just to humanise things a bit. The rest of the letter can read so clinical that it's important to put in an element of "person".

Oh God, there used to be some brutal acronyms (as per elderly relative, long since retired). FLK is mild. It meant the doctor suspected some sort of genetic issue with a child based on visual appearance but wasn't sure what - not very nice, but there were way worse.I won't say some of the really bad ones as they might be upsetting to people and I get the need for a degree of grim humour working in such settings.But I do find PRATFO quite funny (Patient Reassured and Told To Fuck Off). Similiarly people in IT have PICNIC (Problem in Chair Not in Computer).

I got a consultant letter yesterday, I was not described as pleasant but it did say it was a pleasure to meet Danceswithweasels so I take that as I was normalish. In contrast a letter from a private consultant who did not like me described me as a "54 year old Council Worker" 😂

absolutely right.

My GP practice are notorious in our area for being rude and dismissive. Not ral staff tbf but the GPs . Not that i have seen one in 6 years. In 2023 i was diagnosed by an ANP with a lipoma and told that because it was cosmetic only they would do nothing. So i went to a private place to get it removed. Turned out it was a cancerous tumour and I had a removal and then radiotherapy. The consultant wrote a scathing letter to the GP. I kind if expected a call from the surgery, maybe an apology but fucking nothing.

In my considerable experience of these letters,it is standard doctor speak!

WTAF? You're putting Kemi Badenoch into the same category as Myra Hindley?!

Are you joking? If not, that's a pretty horrible thing to say.

DH was copied in on a letter

"Kingofthewild continues to complain..."

They know him well.

I'm not medical but work with patients and writing up notes is an absolute minefield. We've got to document any interaction so that other professionals know what's happened, but also be aware that patients can see exactly what you've said about them. (You can exempt notes from a patient's record but there has to be a really good reason.)
So there's a lot of 'patient was advised to do xyz and information was given to them about it' eg the patient clearly wasn't going to do whatever was suggested.

Yes, I think it's clear that they're more obsessed with covering their backsides than actually keeping proper notes and providing correct diagnoses. I've had to make them correct notes a few times when they've not noted down certain things I've told them which I felt were relevant, especially for subsequent consultations, so that there's a "true" record of what was discussed, not just what the doctor chose to note down.

As a teenager I was described by a doctor as "morose" which, looking back, I think was pretty churlish given I was in the process of going through various unpleasant and embarrassing investigations culminating in a life-changing diagnosis and major surgery.

He was. I lost him nearly 3 years ago.

@Lavenderflower what it means is that they’ve been waiting bloody ages for a hospital appointment and complaining to the GP about it.