to think that nearby doctors should help in a potential emergency

[Gwenhwyfar]

Woman bleeding from the head, but still conscious and walking around just outside an infirmary. Someone goes in to ask for a doctor while we're waiting for the ambulance to arrive and is told one will be along. 15 minutes later security guard comes out saying no doctors are available - they are there but not 'available'. The infirmary doesn't deal with urgent cases, so why couldn't a doctor/nurse leave the routine appointment to see to an emergency? Ambulance arrived in the end. I know the infirmary doctors are not A&E doctors, but surely any medical help could have been useful and don't they have a responsibility to help people even outside their scheduled work?

"I am not a doctor of bleeding head wounds."

Don't you get some general training as well as your specialism?

Just because you see blood it doesn't mean that it's an emergency.

I would have no issue with a doctor helping in a life and death situation, I would expect them to. But not for an apparently minor injury when an ambulance is en route.

And no, police cars don't routinely take injured people to hospital. Why would they?

"it's pretty basic stuff that an ambulance and not a police car takes injured people to hospital."

Yet, you were telling me this woman should have got a lift and not gone in an ambulance!

It's not as if this lady was going unattended, there were the police, passers by and an ambulance on the way. If the police were happy with her wandering around with a bleeding head then they must not have feared any spinal damage etc or that she was at risk from collapsing so all a bit of a non event really.

But this clinic would not have had any equipment that could have helped in this situation - the woman clearly needed stitches or staples or something- they wouldn't have had the things to administer that help.

At best they could have run out shoved a catheter up her and given her a spoonful of methadone - which probably wouldn't have stopped the bleeding.

And a first aid course would equip you with the knowledge of a bleeding wound. Head or else where

"Just because you see blood it doesn't mean that it's an emergency."

Well, no, but that wasn't clear to me as I'm not medically trained. I thought a wound to the head could be serious.

I can't speak for the circumstances when something happens in a medical setting but I don't agree that doctors should necessarily be considered to be ready to help out in every set of circumstances.

A friend who is a doctor came in for some serious criticism for refusing to help someone who has had an accident. But my friend was on a night out and was a little bit drunk. If she had harmed the casualty her career would have been over for certain. She knew it was safer to wait for an ambulance than to do first aid, but it didn't stop people being abusive to her for being too 'selfish' to help.

"And a first aid course would equip you with the knowledge of a bleeding wound. Head or else where"

You don't expect a doctor to treat someone, but you expect me to do a first aid course to do it myself!

treacle - if the doctor's drunk that's obviously different. That would obviously not have been the case for the doctors working in the infirmary would it?

Sorry if I've missed something but was there a reason that the lady needed a doctor?
Not all minor head injuries need A&E - nothing you've said suggests needing to be seen other than maybe a sensible first wider / minor injuries for some steri strips. Not sure what you'd expect an out-patient clinic (presumably without ED facilities / CT scanner) to do - unless this is a massive drip feed.

Personally I think everyone should have some degree of first aid training as you never know when you might need it and more often than not there will not be a doctor around!

She's walking around and "not available" doesn't automatically mean they're taking their tea break.

Everyone should do, and renew, a basic first aid course. In some countries it is mandatory that it is taught in schools.

We get loads of calls from well meaning members of the public who see someone bleeding and demand an ambulance for some random 3rd party they've seen in the street. The majority of the time when cops arrive they discover no they don't need an ambulance they need either first aid or a taxi to the hospital. Police cars are not for running injured people to hospital or drunks home

treacle - if the doctor's drunk that's obviously different. That would obviously not have been the case for the doctors working in the infirmary would it?

Yes, that's why I said in my post that I wasn't talking about within a medical setting. I was commenting generally that it's not fair to say that a doctor must always help. I actually saw a post very similar to your opening post quite recently and someone stated that doctors are legally obliged to help, regardless of circumstances and all I could think was 'I bloody hope not' because it's just not safe sometimes.

You don't necessarily need to do a first aid course. If you ring 999 they will tell you but if everyone knew a few things it would be really useful (especially if they pass it on to their children)
Head injuries often look worse than they are because they bleed a lot

Basics that would be amazing if people knew
Burns - cool water, don't pull off any clothing stuck to it
Fitting - don't put anything in their mouth or restrain them
Bleeding - get a cloth or towel (clean and dry) and apply pressure. If the blood soaks through, put another on top

Don't you get some basic training along with your specialism?

Well given my basic training was nearly 20 years ago and I strongly suspect out of date, even if I could remember it, not really relevant.

And of that list of specialisms in the infirmary not one was going to be any use for assessing your head injured woman.

"nothing you've said suggests needing to be seen other than maybe a sensible first wider / minor injuries for some steri strips. "

Police officers are sensible first aiders I presume, but they obviously thought she needed hospital as they didn't cancel the ambulance. Minor injuries don't exist where I live. There is an out of hours GP service - at the infirmary.

I work alongside medics. I have three consultants to my left and a GP and midwife to my right.

If I turn my ankle, someone has to go get Rob Round The Corner, our local first aider. If I go into cardiac arrest, he is apparently the right person to defibrillate me rather than the fucking cardiologist in the office next door

If you've got a routine appointment at a clinic, you would resent your doctor being late because she/he was helping at a car accident??? Seems unlikely to me.

No it isn't. I'm not the only one who has had complaints about being late/delayed when the complainer knew that I'd been trying to save a child's life in resus.

OP I imagine that the doctors there probably asked security what the casualty was like and, on hearing that they were up and moving/talking, deduced that they were perfectly fine to wait for an ambulance and they didn't need to interrupt their schedule to give emergency treatment.

You're not wrong, a head injury can be serious and needs checking, but in this case it wasn't urgent or critical that they got treatment that minute..

I've done lots of first aid courses for work, and they (unofficially) once told us that often a regular GP is less use than a vet in an emergency scenario.

There is no doubt she did need hospital but she didn't need emergency treatment by a doctor at the scene. And cops will not cancel an ambulance in this circumstance.

In not sure why you are so annoyed by this? What did you expect a random doctor to do that passerby/police officers couldn't do?

Well, yeah, I'd only stuck out 2 years of med school and got less than a full morning of actual first aid in that time. I got more when one of the boys started primary school and we had a couple of mornings of paediatric first aid delivered to us.