AIBU to be shocked at my GP openly googling my MH symptoms, meds and treatments?

[NeopreneMermaid]

Part of a bigger rant really (I feel a blog coming on). I have PND, anxiety and panic attacks which can't be that unusual can it?

Yet I've spent a year being referred from service to service (three GPs, private counsellor, psychiatrist, family counselling and, worst, social services for which I received an apology) with no-one actually taking me on or offering treatment.

This GP was the most recent I've seen and finished the appointment by googling flicking elastic bloody bands as a cure for panic attacks, clicking the first result and printing off the page without reading it saying, "I've not used this site before but here, take it and read this."

I know there are frequent news reports about inadequate mental health support but this is properly taking this piss, is it not?

The problem isn't that the GP googled your MH symptoms, meds and treatments. My doctor quite often looks up symptoms and treatments to make sure he's talking accurately and using up to date info.

He then makes sure that I'm being treated correctly, that I've been referred to the right specialists and that they have responded helpfully, that I've got the right medications, and that we've set up the correct schedule for following up my treatment.

The problem is that your doctor hasn't done all those other things.

My gp printed off a ton of info for my anxiety problems, he wanted me to have all the info and options available and he couldn't chat about it all in the appointment time, even if he could I'd have forgotten it. I think it's fine for gps to use internet to check details and stuff but it doesn't sound like your gp was sure if the source if his info was actually correct and reliable.

It's shocking you haven't had any treatment, going backwards and forwards can't be doing your anxiety any good, hope you manage to get sorted soon.

So Nicola19, in your role as a psychiatrist, would you be happy if a member of your family experienced a year of debilitating mental illness and being sent round the houses culminating in a print-off about elastic band therapy (that the doctor hasn't actually read)? Would it be understandable if your mum was too discouraged and frustrated to take kindly to the idea that elastic bands are now the substitute for the medical treatment she'd been needing for a year? Or would you expect her to go obediently to her laptop, google the therapy and implement it herself without a professional cognitive behavioural therapist anywhere in sight? Quite frankly, the OP is clearly able to use google as well as the GP and could have come across the therapy herself if she'd wished to use it. Where does the bit about being a trained professional providing a service come in? And what about the idea that patients are people who need to be treated reasonably and kindly?

From a personal perspective, I have seen medics in my own family happily consulting text books to confirm or fill in (small!) gaps in their knowledge - an appropriate website is nothing more than an extension of that. It's how it's used that matters - what resources are being drawn upon, whether the internet resources are supporting clinical practice or taking the place of it etc.

clinical knowledge, sorry.

At least he was looking for information on something he knew so he could pass it on, I had a GP send me out the room, Google my autoimmune disease, call me back (he left it on screen...) and tell me it's a pregnancy condition so why am I worried about it... It's actually not a pregnancy condition, it's just one of the biggest complications in pregnancy and the biggest reason it's initially investigated but there are plenty of men and childless women with it.

He could have at least used a website that he had already read though.

Thanks Blankety for saying what I would have said to Nicola.

Indeed, please do not think I am a stranger to Dr Google.

It was odd that in the same appointment, the GP told me to keep taking olanzapine (anti-psychotic) despite the side effects, prescribed diazepam (no mention of side effects) and then suggested elastic bands would be the solution to my year-long quest for a solution.

Anyway. The olanzapine has now finished so I'm going through withdrawal symptoms. Ugh.

I never expected a quick cure (or even a cure; just effective management would be good) and I know it's a case of finding what works for me but the last year has been ridiculous.

As a health librarian, I'm fairly horrified!! There are better resources he could have used, and even if there weren't he should NOT hand over information or suggest a website without checking it's veracity!