Just a rant, really

[Parkland]

DH had a chat with next door, whose daughter has recently qualified as a GP. She told DH that the daughter is annoyed about having to put up with all these patients who come in with minor things and how it's a waste of her time.

I hear this all the time from the other side - how people are afraid to go to the GP because they worry about being a time-waster and let important things get much worse. People don't know whether something is serious or not - they're not doctors.

I thought the daughter was being grandiose - does she imagine that a newly-qualified GP (or any GP) sees only complex, fascinating cases?!

My first thought was wow, she learns fast doesn't she? You would think that she would have been concentrating on her practice and not be making judgments already against patients for all the reasons you mentioned OP.
This is something you might be more inclined to hear from someone who's been a doctor for many years already, not for someone who's just qualified.
Fat lot of good she's going to be in taking her place and easing the burden on those doctors who have been practicing for many years through terrible times that have still not recovered.
I think you're right in how you feel about her.
I shudder to think what she's going to be like in 5 years!

@Parkland
You think whatever you think, she thinks whatever she thinks....... You both think you are right

Your not getting this from the horse's mouth, are you? 'DH said that the neighbour said her daughter said...' For all you know the daughter said in passing, 'Yeah there are a few time wasters,' and your neighbour has picked up on it. There's not much point in getting cross about the whole thing from two degrees of separation away.

She doesn’t know Jack about shit and needs to sit down.

If she has qualified as a GP, she will have been doing the job of a GP for a considerable period of time. Of course she should know what patients don't realise what is minor and she is supposed to encourage them to come to her if in doubt. So she's being a dick. But she probably has many patients who she's worried about that are not getting seen so it's more a systemic failure than anything else.

Yanbu and sometimes they should exercise a little more curiosity before concluding someone is a time waster. I spent over two decades being made to feel like I was making a fuss about nothing only to find I did in fact have a serious but treatable condition all that time

Being a GP is a specialism so she’ll have been working as a doctor for some time. I bet she was more frustrated at people wasting appointments with a common cold etc, stuff you can go the pharmacy for.

How do the time wasters get through the receptionists? You need to be skilled in the dark arts to get an appointment.

Your neighbour is BU for repeating a private conversation her daughter had about work with their neighbour. We all moan about work and say things we probably shouldn’t but wouldn’t want repeated.
I’m sure she’s a caring and thorough doctor when she’s at work.

You don’t know the context- maybe the question was what is the best and worst bit of the job and GP has happened to see some otherwise completely healthy patients with colds and coughs are that have not given themselves any time to recover or taken things like paracetamol.

OK people are worried, as long as she is professional and understanding with the patient I see no problem with a moan.

Firstly you've not heard it from the horses mouth, secondly I actually know people who are at the Dr's all the time gor nothing - taking DC in with a common cold, demanding antibiotics for the most minor ailments and not using other available resources such as the pharmacy or nhs 111 app, which makes it harder for everyone to get an appt. Thirdly, most people moan a bit about their jobs, perhaps she'd had a bad day. It's a bit harsh to be so judgey over 2 conversation imo

I would make sure I wasn't registered at her practice. She is the reason people put off going to the doctor's with very serious things. People feel guilty and judged so their health outcomes are worse for the delay.

And some people won't change their lifestyles when a blood test clearly reveals they are on a slippery slope.

That must also be frustrating as a GP.

Hopefully the GP daughter can be part of the progress where the receptionists can triage more accurately and book people in with perfectly qualified surgery nurses if their reason is minor.

We need new medics she will likely come to be thankful for some time wasting cases from time to time.

I cut medics, all medics, as much slack as they need what they deal with at work is challenging. Most jobs you are not expected to put up with verbal and physical abuse for helping people.

And yeah as PPs say, you heard this from, DH, who heard it from her mum, you might actually agree with her if you heard it from her OP, but you seem to automatically have gone on the defensive. Did she say she wanted complex fascinating cases? Or was she referring to people who could have gone to boots and bought some ibuprofen gel type thing and she would have preferred to have the time with another patient trying to work out if their back pain needed a scan or not?

This is why I hate going to the dr and rarely do. Twice I’ve been to get a mole checked out (my mum died of malignant melanoma) and I was made to feel like a complete nuisance and time waster.

There are many reasons people don't go to the GP.
Denial, embarrassment, knowing they haven't made any lifestyle changes since iast time so their next blood results will be worse, thinking all doctors are part of the great reset conspiracy and they want to bump you off for profit for their lizard overlords.

"she" is not the reason that's a ridiculous statement.

And she didn't say she didn't see the time wasters or treat them with respect and patience, she just found it frustrating which was a private conversation with her mum. That's still allowed.

I kept being told I just needed ibuprofen gel and tablets for my knee. Eventually it turned out I needed surgery

I kept being told I was making a fuss about my stomach pains. It turned out I had a stomach ulcer. (Largely from taking too many painkillers to cope with my knee)

I kept being told I just needed to eat more healthily to sort my tiredness (even though I ate really healthily and was slim )... Turned out I had a rare neurological condition

I doubt any of those doctors that saw me as a "time waster" ever found out how wrong they were

It's not great for this to be said out loud, but the GP daughter is absolutely right. Any GP would say the same, if pushed. It's a shitty job, and the great British public seem to trot along to the GP for anything and everything - mostly unnecessarily. So how can we educate the public that (say) having a cold does not require input from a doctor? That is the conundrum.

Oh yeah and I kept being told my son's boiling eczema just needed some emollient and his struggles to ever be happy was just me being a new mum. Turns out I wasn't a time waster he had severe allergies

And I kept being told it was normal for toddlers to cough a bit at night. Turned out he had undiagnosed asthma but we didn't find that out till a cold landed him in ICU.

Again probably half a dozen visits each time, all incorrectly labelling me as a 'time waster"

Last few times I or my children have had "just a cold" we have needed steroids and antibiotics

Each time I hesitated before going and felt so worried we were time wasting

And also see all my examples above. Where doctors even now would have me in my list of trivial time wasters....but they missed obvious signs that there was something properly wrong with me/my son

@CassandraWebb and we have a son who ended up in A&E and admitted at 3 months old with infected eczema and severe allergies and was treated amazingly.

I went with a niggle and got scans, blood tests, thorough follow ups and in depth consultations.

To be fair your surgery sounds terrible. Perhaps we are lucky.

Multiple different surgeries over the years. Multiple different doctors.

We must be lucky then.

My point wasn't that these doctors were terrible. It's that it is not uncommon at all for people to have their diagnosis missed multiple times before a doctor eventually spots it. With Myasthenia (my neurological condition) my story of multiple doctor visits before diagnosis is absolutely normal. Myaware are trying to raise awareness in GPs right now for this exact reason. The point is doctors often wrongly often think they have seen someone who is "fine" /making a fuss about trivia. And they rarely I expect ever find out that their "time waster" wasn't a time waster at all.

I guess that's why chemists now prescribe for minor things, to keep minor things out the gp.

What is minor to the gp is probably not minor to the patient, we mostly have no medical background or knowledge, obviously we have Google...