Should she have got priority treatment over other non-urgent patients?

[Rabbitradar]

DD is an SHO (dr) in A&E in city X. She was off duty yesterday and so came home and stayed here last night in city Y which is 30 miles from city X. She was due on shift at 10am this morning. Unfortunately one of her contact lenses tore in her eye and despite several attempts a piece of contact lens remained in her eye causing blurred vision and mild pain.
She could not drive due to blurred vision so I drove her to eye casualty in city Y.
Waiting room packed (9am) and average wait time 4 hours.
DD didn’t ask for priority treatment - and wouldn’t dream of expecting to be seen before anybody requiring urgent treatment. She did ask what the waiting time was and explained she was due on shift in A&E at hospital X.

However, to me it seems nuts that she is spending the morning sat in a waiting room with lots of other non-urgent casualties (and doubtless some urgent ones too) whilst 30 miles down the road at hospital X the waiting room in A&E will be backing up further as they are 1 Dr down.

AIBU to think that in some circumstances -like these - it would be sensible for NHS staff to get priority treatment?

Please note I am not suggesting that any other patient’s treatment is compromised just that other non-urgent patients have to wait a bit longer ....

Those who say we should let doctors with non urgent medical issues “queue jump” (for lack of better word), is the same true of firefighters and police officers? There are other safety critical jobs too. And if we do this, how on earth do we expect the NHS to manage this and triage accordingly?
Nobody seems to have given a really considered answer to this.

I have no skin in the game, just trying to think it through logically.

@schuyler I agree. It’s tricky isn’t it? On the one hand it’s a no brainer - let A&E dr queue jump so that they can get back to reducing queue in A&E but on the other hand why should ‘mr Smith’ and his antecedents have to wait longer to facilitate this?

@Dollymixture22 love is love is love. Love from your DParents or DB is not some kind of second rate love compared to that of a DP. I’m sure that most of us mums here aspire to our DC feeling really loved and cherished as adult DC - it’s not something to be ashamed of!

Why didn’t you drive her to work, so she could start her shift and then they could have sorted it without her even booking in? Of course another hospital isn’t going to prioritise her, she could literally be anyone trying to get in quicker.

I sprained my ankle once and had a colleague strap it so I could continue working. No need to actually enter the queue.

Nobody’s considering the fireman and the policeman and the higher rate tax payer because they’re strawmen.

I don't think we should be angry at OP for trying to find a solution to these waiting times. If the NHS was properly funded and staffed, it wouldn't be an issue. If it was staffed well enough that she only had a short wait and her colleagues could manage without her for a little bit, then you can start to apply moral arguments about importance and queue jumping.

In reality, moving her up the queue would have made the overall hours waited in A&E shorter. The fact that these departments are working on such a fine balance is not OPs fault. Let's be annoyed at the right people.

I had the same issue, broken contact lens, a few years ago. Went to A&E, only two other patients there so was seen more or less straight-away. I then got a lecture from the doctor for using the NHS when I should have gone to an opticians (it was a Sunday night, bank holiday weekend). He told me my eye was completely clear of fragments of lens.
I woke up the next day, eye very sore and irritated, and positive there was still some lens in my eye. Went back to A&E and, lucky me, saw the same doctor who really gave me a dressing down for wasting his valuable time.

Kind nurse managed to get the remaining bits of lens out for me and the doctor did apologise, eventually. He still insisted though that it wasn't an A&E job, but an optician's.

Thanks @LetsSplashMummy. That’s the point isn’t it? If DD could have got back to work quicker then it would benefit everyone waiting in A&E - all the firefighters, Carers, policemen, higher rate tax payers, beauticians, etc etc. , shortening their wait by hours probably. But at the cost of those in eye casualty waiting 10 mins longer .
But I get that the system is the system and we all have to suck it up. But seems inefficient to me.

Regarding going to optician instead:
Yes absolutely agree that part of reducing the strain on our NHS relies on us avoiding unnecessary trips to acute services and using our opticians, pharmacists, minor injury units etc etc.
I don’t dispute that in many cases optician can deal with corneal abrasion and removing lens fragment, if optometrist is qualified to prescribe if needed.
But .... our local opticians still require an appointment to be made and they weren’t even open when we set out. Specsavers and NHS both advise contacting eye casualty as an option in this scenario.
DD asked ophthalmic specialist nurse if she should go to optician instead and was told no, need to stay and see dr.
Dr saw DD and made treatment plan (antibiotics etc) and asked nurse to remove fragment, but she couldn’t do it because of where it was lodged and so dr ended up doing it anyway.
Anyway, thanks to all for your responses.
Oh and DD tried at home first for a while of course - she managed to flip her eyelid inside out herself ( my contribution was a cotton bud!) but just couldn’t get the bugger out.

You still have not answered the question of why a doctor should be seen before a firefighter in your eyes. Both are jobs which save lives and obviously if apparently someone who was trapped in a house on fire had to wait because a firefighter was in A&E it would be catastrophic. Same for a 999 call operator for example. So where is the disctinction drawn. This has been asked many times on this thread and OP is happy to ignore it because it reveals the flaw in her logic.

This has been asked many times on this thread and OP is happy to ignore it because it reveals the flaw in her logic.

This.

Also, should a doctor go before a nurse? A surgeon before an SOH? A good doctor before a bad doctor? A doctor from one A&E department with a waiting time of 4 hours, or a doctor from another A&E department with a waiting time of 1 hour?

What other queues should she jump to the top of as she's a doctor in A&E? The butchers? The bakers? The candlestick makers?

Clearly in your view, her time and job is more important than everyone else who was ahead of her in the queue.

It might be a lesson well learned for her to understand why patients are irritable by the time they're seen in A&E.

I was sat in the eye emergency department this weekend. It had signs saying inpatients and children take priority which is fare enough. If a member of staff in uniform for that hospital had arrived and queue jumped I wouldn't have thought anything tbh but otherwise I expect people to be triaged on clinical basis.

No, they have to triage on clinical need. Only fair way.

No, they have to triage on clinical need. Only fair way

No one’s saying she should jump ahead of those with clinical need.

But generally a+e waiting rooms are full of minor cases that aren’t urgent.

If a dr is pt 99 out of 100 all with cut fingers, headaches, flu, chicken pox, ate some soap etc, all of whom can wait 10 mins more without adverse affect, why shouldn’t she be seen first.

The most effective way to reduce queues in our a&e was usually to put out an announcement that we’d had a major trauma and wait times would be over 4 hours, and if you could go to your gp in the morning to do so. Half the waiting room would get up and leave.

If a dr is pt 99 out of 100 all with cut fingers, headaches, flu, chicken pox, ate some soap etc, all of whom can wait 10 mins more without adverse affect, why shouldn’t she be seen first.

She was at the eye emergency department.

Everyone would have been waiting for issues that might have affected their eyesight. No cut finger in sight pun not intended

Clearly in your view, her time and job is more important than everyone else who was ahead of her in the queue.

FFS! Another one who hasn't RTFT properly. It was NOT "just because she is a doctor," but because she was meant to be on duty down the road treating patients herself!!
WTF is so hard to understand about that?

Angelina - you also had a solicitor in the queue, waiting to go to court, or he could hold up a critical trial.
You had a Mum who needed to get home in time to bring her kids to school.
You had a carer who needed to get home to administer meds.
You had a police officer, on duty, who couldn't report in.
You had a maternity nurse, who couldn't report for duty.
You had someone with ADHD who couldn't sit still.
You had a patient with agoraphobia who was becoming increasingly distressed by the wait.
You had the banker, whose presentation to Chinese investors, couldn't make his meeting.

NOW WHAT IS SO FUCKING DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT, FFS (right back at you!).

You might have had:
A zero hours contract worker who would be fired for not showing up.
A breastfeeding Mum who was becoming engorged while her baby was at home crying from hunger while Dad couldn't make it to work.
An interpreter for UC applications whose absence meant an applicant's submission was delayed by a further week resulting in her becoming homeless.

NOW which of those would you give priority to?

Prioritise them there for me Angelina 1-10. Include Op's dd in your list.

Now do you see why staff prioritise on clinical urgency?

Reminds me of the sinking ship scenario.......

rachelshae.wordpress.com/2010/10/22/who-would-you-save/

The reasoning given by some third grade students are as good as this mother of a doctor....

YABU. Why should she get priority just because she has to get to work? So will others. How would they prioritise what is less urgent than her issue? Drs triage, she takes her turn

@Alrighteo the point is that if you treat the doctor quickly and she can then get back to work say 15 mins later she will the spend the next 3hr45min seeing all the other people on your list instead of being sat in the waiting room next to them.

In this scenario treating the doctor first is in the best interests of EVERYONE ELSE (not the the doctor herself, who would have done four hours less work otherwise).

Alrighteo, Still not getting it, are you? But Darkstar has said it for me.