to expect the hospital consultant to at least have read my notes...

[mumclaire]

Had an appointment today which both dh and I took the morning off work for and arranged babysitter for dd - to discuss birth options for dc2 (hoping for a vbac) - This appointment was automatically made for me. Anyway got into his office and he asked ME why I'm there - err you sent me the appointment and then flicked through my notes and asked ME why they were so thick?? erm I don't know you might want to read them and see what it says in them..
Anyway sort of said that he thinks it would be ok for me to have a vbac but would have to see at the time -it was a complete waste of time.

Is there a midwife there who specialises in advice for VBAC? In my experience, they are well worth seeking out...

Seems like a total waste of everyone's time! When I have seen the obstetricians, they have usually got a junior doc to read the notes and summarise them in about 30 seconds. All I can think in their defence is that they are overworked and perhaps had an emergency to deal with? Try to see a midwife instead. Unfortunately, the system is poor.

Not a clue about special midwives - was given a leaflet explaining what a vbac is and he said that all I had to do was tell the delivery suite when i started having contractions and they'd take me in and monitor me.... I'm more annoyed that we went to a lot of hassle to organise our lives around the appointment and he hadn't bothered to find out anything about me - what if I had had pnd or severe health issues - surely a specialist consultant would at least have a flick through your notes before you get in the room...

I had a couple appointments like this when pg with ds, but my favorite clinic experience was at a paediatric appoiment for my 2yo dd we saw a registrar rather than the consultant. The first thing he said to us was 'when did you first suspect your daughter had problems'. I just stared at him and didn't know what to say, then I actually started laughing.

He obviously hadn't even opened her notes as she was put on a ventilator immediately after birth, stayed in the hospital for 6 weeks, and has been in and out of hosptital since then.

Once we ran through her history with him he was obviously embarrassed and left the room and a few minutes later the consultant came back (without the registrar)

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was when we were having a nightmare after DS was born with his jaundice - loads of contradictory advice, unpleasant, intrusive treatment, etc.

My old boss told me: When a doctor comes along and asks what's wrong with your child, say to him/her: I don't know. I'm not a doctor. Go and get the notes, read them, then come back. Otherwise any information/diagnosis you give me will be useless as you do not know the prior history and you can't expect me as a non-doctor to remember or understand everything. So bugger off and get them.

Once we started doing that, things got better.

When I first saw my consultant for a routine appointment early in my pregnancy he had my notes in his hand when he said to me "So, Chubby, is there anything here which I should worry about?" ... er, I dunno mate, you're the doctor ...

This happened to us a dozen or more times.

[Before pregnancy] Sonographers saying "so how far along are you?" when going in for a scan related to fertility problems.

[During pregnancy] Doctors saying "Ah, twins!" when one of the twins had already died.

and so on.

On the other hand, when your notes cover hundreds of pages I suppose it is unreasonable for them to expect to read every last word. But not unreasonable to expect them to have covered the basics.

I think is a very common experience. Happened nearly every hospital visit we ever had with dd2.

Whilst I can see that it doesn't exactly inspire confidence, please give the Drs a break-it can take 15-20 mins to read right through a set of notes and the notes don't usually appear until the day of the clinic(if they are lucky). Time you then don't have if there are 25 people booked into 20 slots.
MWs often have more time especially if you are going for a VB-use them.
The reason you see a Consultant is to identify if there is some reason you can't have VB because a) the obstetrician does CS and b) the Obstetrician makes the decision and takes the responsibility-if the wheels fall off-not the MW.

That's true, I wouldn't expect them to have read through anything but most recent info.

Hospital admin was the biggest problem for us. Constant losing of notes.

Yes, admin is often a shambles-notes can take weeks and occasionally months to get from Clinic A to Consultant B!

Oh - I understand that Drs have a limited amount of time and I didn't expect him to know my entire medical history but I at least expected him to know why I was there and as the hospital has kept my notes since I had dd and I have never seen them - I have no clue what is written them so wouldn't know why my file seems fatter than most - just felt like the appointment was a waste of time for us both. Its not easy to arrange time off work and stuff..

Sometimes drs ask people why they are there for the appointment just to double check and make sure that the patient knows, but in this case it just seems like a waste of time.

Mumclaire, not saying you were wrong to feel it was a waste of your time! Just offering alternative explanations to the obvious-which is "can't be bothered to read yet another set of notes"!I'm sure that does happen-but not always!
Anyway you got the result you were hoping for I think so fingers crossed for you!

We ahd a PAed appt today, a multi discipline meeting- the essential other people ahd all booked leave and the file had gone missing so although APed si wonderful and remembers her cases well, there was little in the way of proper reports etc.

Fortunately the LEA seemed to have booked it as a mass day out which was handy LOL, but it was all a bit wierd otherwise

That is very annoying, what a waste of your time. Doesn't fill you with confidence in these people when they have no idea what you're seeing them for. I have seen the same MW every appointment this pregnancy and at every one she has asked me if it's my first baby. I'm probably expecting too much for her to remember me at all, but it is all written in my notes.
YANBU.

mumclaire - if you are hoping for a vbac, then you need to get your plan of action organised - the women who are most successful with a vbac tend to have sought out the people they need to see, so:

1 - ask your mw for a referral to the consultant mw for the trust - that is the person whose job it is to aim for "normality".

2 - do your reading and decide if you want to go the medicalised vbac route, or the non-intervention vbac route.

3 - come and join us on the vbac thread

4 - have a look at the ukvbachbac yahoo group - lots of discussions there (don't be put off by the seeming bias towards hbac!)

This is me speaking as one who has done all the above, and only this week (at my 36 week appointment with the consultant) have all the pieces finally slotted into place.

Good luck with your vbac!

Not that this is an excuse at all for awful patient care and making you feel like you had such a negative experience but I do know some docs, nurses and midwives have policy not to read notes before appointments as they feel it can predjudice their assessment and like to gain a fresh perspective on the situation at that time. I do however, think that communicating this might not be a bad idea.

Our trust now keeps its notes in Milton Keynes, in a big warehouse (100 miles away). If we want them, we have to order them. They can take up to a week to get here, if at all. Half of what is written is in illegible doctor's scrawl, and in the other half you have to pick through endless entries about whether or not people have opened their bowels and what their temperature was, before you can find the important stuff. Ultimately, it's easiest to ask the patient, who generally speaking are experts on their own conditions!! pshock]

In the medics defence, I always ask women some questions even if I have the info in the notes as it's amazing what can be missed/misinterpreted/wrongly recorded in previous notes. Plus, the patient's opinion of the situation is important too. But I do read them first!

Agree with sixophone and reikizen-whilst perhaps not so common in an antenatal clinic, it is not infrequent that an outpatient thinks they are there to discuss one thing and has been referred about something else-never hurts to check!