This very pleasant patient...etc

[LovelyBath77]

So my surgeon is very experienced and may need his help at home point. But his letters are so old fashioned. I mentioned I sometime felt my physical problems were seen as the result of anxiety by my GP, and he said he knew it wasn't. However I do have a mental health condition as well. He keeps saying things now, like I have improved psychologically and physically since my last surgery (and I think this may be in support of if we need to operate again). However this is not, the case overall. It's complicated, but I'm to sure, should surgeons be commenting on mental health? Or AIBU?

Funnily enough DS1 has had a consultant appointment and when the letter came through it just said "thank you for referring this [wrong age] boy" and I thought "What, not 'pleasant?' He was perfectly lovely!" So it is a relief to find that it is not such a done thing any more.

I got this "anxious mother" in a referral letter after the Dr tried to talk me out of the men b vaccination.

I was rather annoyed. Especially since the NHS brought that vaccine in for children not long after.

I find it a bit patronising. Sometimes if I'm in pain and I've already seen ten consultants who've all said different things I can be a bit arsey, but I still don't deserve that to be a black mark against my name.

Nan0 I'm glad you don't do it! I think being direct about someone's emotional/mental state actually helps us all stop using euphemisms about mental illness and start actually facing the issues. If even doctors can't be honest about it then there's not much hope.

Some of my letters have repeated my entire life story totally unnecessarily, which if it is code suggests to me that they're effectively saying I can't be reliable in my own analysis of my pain levels etc. It really pisses me off because I've had numerous occasions where I've had completely the wrong diagnosis and the letter has talked endlessly about my mental health and not even addressed whatever I went for.

Hmmm.... I had 'Thankyou for referring this 40 year old primary school teacher' from my neurologist. But then he was dubious to start with that I actually had the condition I was asking him about, due to being accompanied by a friend of mine who was also a patient of his. And who also had the same, fairly rare - particularly in those under 50 - condition.

Scans and responses to medication proved me right.

Sometimes when they say interesting / unusual it can refer to the course of the condition as well.

What concerns me is that people can be a PITA or of low mood and anxious BECAUSE of the stressful or serious condition they have, and need more support and taken seriously. So I think it is good they are stopping this kind of thing. For anyone worrying they are not referred to as pleasant or whatever, and simply a patient, I have to say have seen a few on recent years and have only had this from this one senior consultant who is probably in his 50s or 60s, and not from the younger ones.

Husband had (from a young consultant) "this nice chap who is an engineer".

My husband got a shock diagnosis of glaucoma in a letter when he went in for something completely different. AND was an elderly lady.

Can only assume a mistake.

(Discussing it today - good timing! Perhaps he's on mumsnet.....)

I've often seen "pleasant" in letters (I've worked around healthcare quite a lot). Occasionally "interesting" or "unfortunate" crop up too!

My favourite ever though was where the doctor included a separate note not to be copied to the patient, explaining that they hadn't been able to determine whether the patient was male or female and had struggled to write the whole report in gender-neutral pronouns!

I used to get "delightful" from neurology I was pregnant at the time, I don't think anyone else would have described pregnant me as "delightful"

I need to request my recent letters from psychiatry, I'd love to see what the ADHD clinic have said "this 22-year-old patient who can't sit still and doesn't listen to a thing I say"

Many years ago I had to weed through a medical library to remove out of date records for offsite storage which meant skimming through notes to identify the most recent date. Such code was rife!

There was one set where the patient had a complex medical history, stubbornly aggravated by their lifestyle. The tone of the letters became increasingly exasperated to the point where a string of adjectives was used including rude, and reference to lack of personal hygiene. I did wonder how unpleasant they had been over time to deserve that particular description!