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?

My parents are both doctors and have helped people they have seen injured in the streets etc but seriously injured not in situations like this, they've said sometimes it's not worth the chance of being sued and it's the way the country is going.

They've both done first aid training outside of work too, I'm a med student and it was recommended to my class that we take a first aid course that the uni provides.

Poshjock my mums colleague had a lawsuit filed against her (in the UK) after she attended a woman who had collapsed in a shop , thankfully nothing come of it but it knocked her and she took a long period away from medicine.

I'm surprised that the response is so negative. I've kept being taken ill this pregnancy and doctors have stopped to help me (if you were the obstetrician at Waterloo station thank you!). I collapsed outside a hospital and two nurses came out to help. I have a lot of friends who are doctors and they automatically go to help people.

Doctors aren't (usually) first responders - they are people that first responders take patients too, and whinare seen by doctors only after triage.

(I say (usually) because air ambulances carry doctors)

They could break off from patients to deal with something on the street, but that's not actually a good use of resources. Though happens when ther is a clear emergency (remember how much loss of life was prevented because the London 7/7 bus bomb went off so close to the BMA HQ?)

A doctor on the street (even when outside a hospital) cannot offer much to a stable casualty other than to get them to the nearest A&E. because they need the ability to run tests and the kit to patch things up.

Ordinary people don't tend to get sued if they help out. I once stopped at the scene of an accident. Was first there and helped save the life of three people.

The person who caused the crash tried to pin their supposed chronic back and neck pain on me. They apparently would have preferred to be engulfed in flames.

Ultimately there was no fault found with my actions, but it wasn't a fun process. I don't honestly know if I'd help out again, I probably would in an absolute emergency, but honestly I can see why people don't.

If it happened on a Saturday then chances are there's one doctor in the infirmary for all the inpatients. If they're out treating a fight victim and one of the patients has a turn for the worse it won't be very good if the hospital staff can't get hold of the doctor or if they're delayed getting back to the ward.

A doctor friend of mine won't admit to being a doctor if they put out a call on flights. She says she's worried about getting sued. A colleague of hers (UK) did get sued by a woman he helped on a plane. Woman suffered a collapsed lung and doctor did surgery on the plane, saved her life and she sued for the fact he exposed her breasts to the plane. Not sure she got anywhere with it but it would have upset him I'm sure.

On tne 7/7 attacks doctors from a nearby hospital did come running out, because it was an emergency: life or death.

In this case it sounds as if they would have needed to interrupt work with ill people in front of them, come out, ascertain cut, consciousness , and recommend a&e for stitching....

When you ring 999 and are asked which service if you say police and ambulance or police and fire you are put through to the police. The police then ring the other emergency services that are required.

They were at work, doing their jobs, seeing other patients. They cannot abandon other patients because someone has a small wound to the head - you are not in a position to decide that their cases were less important than this one.

I am a bit sick of this culture by people of no relevant qualifications or information criticising and mistrusting the professional judgement of extremely hardworking, very clever, very well qualified people.

I assume given your mistrust and superior judgement that you will always treat yourself In future if you are ill?

Just remember that every doctor could have been an investment banker instead and added and earned 100 times as much. A co sultans at 37 earns about £65k. A digit solicitors exceeds that at 24. An investment banker can aasily earn £6m in his or her thirties. Many plumbers earn more than doctors. Don't fuck them about or you will find they all go into much better paid, less abused professions.

City not digit.

Poshjock - the GMC protect patients, not doctors. They strike doctors off! Doctors still pay for it though, which is another story.

Ok, so this woman's got a head injury. So hypothetically, you drag an infirmary doctor away from what they're doing (something routine. Like maybe telling someone they have cancer, or HIV, or similar...) and they stick a steri-strip on it. She feels better, refuses the ambulance, goes home, and drops dead that night was actually bleeding in the brain and needed a scan - the kind they could order in a&e. I'm not seeing that as a good outcome, frankly.

Doctors and nurses aren't generally terrible people so I'm going to assume that if they could have helped, they would have done. If they didn't, I think we can assume it was because they knew they couldn't.

A first aid course is only any good if you've actually got the confidence to use it. I've done one for work but was relieved of my duties as a first aider as I nearly passed out on the course.

Op, you posted here that you felt it was an energency. The nearby doctor didn't think so. You do not accept their answer. You have no medical training but you keep insisting that the doctor should have seen the woman. When people suggest that you learn some basic first aid (which in my view should be made a compulsery subject at school), you refuse.

Either educate yourself or accept what someone says who does know what they're talking about. It is completely idiotic that you know nothing about the subject but decide what a medical professional should have done.

PinkSparkly: I disagree. Doing a first aid course gives you more knowledge about what is happening and what needs to be done. Even if you are not the one who will be handeling the patient.

For all those saying that a person walking around with a head injury is not serious please do not assume this. A friend of mine was found to have a brain haemorrhage as a result of their accident. They were walking and talking! They ultimately required several days in ITU and subsequent rehab.

My bil is a paramedic. He has said before that many GPs are actively discouraged to get involved in medical emergencies because emergency medicine is a lot more complex than general medicine. At his hospital they encourage only paramedics and ER doctors/nurses to get involved in them with other doctors and nurses instructed to call and wait for an ambulance.

But yeah this wasn't a medical emergency.

The doctors were busy doing their jobs. They can't just drop everything and go running around in the streets.

It wasn't a life and death emergency. If you didn't want to get involved in a fight what makes you think doctors would want to?

Police and ambulance are the right services to deal with this.

GPs get annual first aid, CPR, defibrillation training. Just because a GP surgery is in the centre of town doesn't mean it's a walk-in or mini A&E department.

I'm surprised that the response is so negative. I've kept being taken ill this pregnancy and doctors have stopped to help me (if you were the obstetrician at Waterloo station thank you!). I collapsed outside a hospital and two nurses came out to help. That's because a collapsing pregnant woman is a potential medical emergency. A person walking round with bleeding head but otherwise not neurologically compromised is not.

Scalps are a pain. They bleed huge amounts for small injuries and look dreadful when they aren't. The majority of head injuries/scalp lacerations I see are in minors. They get sutured, checked neurologically, and sent home with strict head injury advice, what to worry about etc.

Wound assessment and closure and a check by an A&E doctor takes more time than you think. It isn't something that any old hospital that might have doctors who may not be busy (spoiler alert: they are all busy) can make time for, and then of course you need nurses who can properly assess and close wounds (steri-strips, sutures, staples etc, taking 30mins+), which that particular area probably won't have.

Of course if she would have collapsed, it would have been an emergency, but ultimately, she would have ended up in an ambulance to A&E.

You don't need to know everything but it's pretty basic stuff that an ambulance and not a police car takes injured people to hospital.
Any form of transport can take an injured person to hospital. They can even get a bus.

Allnightlong, if this person also had a haemorrhage a Dr passing by or in the infirmary still would have been unable to help.