To think doctors, specifically GP's need to change their approach to patients

[GlasswareisOverated]

We live in the technological age. We have access to information at our fingertips, that someone fifty years ago, hell even twenty years ago would not have been able to comprehend.
Am I being unreasonable to think that drs need to lose the 'we know best about everything medical' attitude.

Obviously I won't be performing brain surgery any time soon or stripping legs of vascular veins to be used in cardiac surgery but I can read a laboratory report and understand what it means and I can get the gist of most medical studies.

"Half of what you are taught in medical school will be wrong in 10 years’ time. The trouble is, none of your teachers know which half"
Former dean of Harvard medical school, Sydney Burwell.

My experiences on a personal level have led me to conclude it's not sometimes wrong, it's often wrong, will elaborate in the morning, as Mumsnet developed an issue with something during the typing of the post and I do not have the energy to retype currently.

some people believe that because they’ve read some articles online they can argue against a virologist or infectious disease consultant.

To be fair there's a huge difference between arguing with a consultant who has specialised for many years, and a GP who knows a little about a lot. A number of consultants I've spoken to are deeply disillusioned with GPs because patients arrive too late with misinformation imparted by GPs which then has to be corrected.

My child has asthma. In despair I asked a medic friend who specialises for advice, explaining what the GP had advised. She advised a treatment path that has been effective and added 'GPs don't understand childhood asthma'. Her advice was the opposite of what I'd heard from the GP.

I went to the doctor with reduced fetal movements. No referral to maternity unit. No listening to baby's heart. He prodded my stomach while out of the blue asking if my father in law was who he thought he was. Then sent me home. I called the maternity unit myself who said they were "very surprised" in a weary, unsurprised manner.

Let's draw a veil over how most of them year endometriosis and the length of time it takes to be referred for treatment.

One wonders what they are good at. Weighing everyone? Inserting the mirena coil? They've got to be on commission for those because they are keen.

Well that's fine until you get it wrong mrs know it all!

I have encountered some very stubborn doctors, but I have found that most will work with you cooperatively once they understand that you really understand the subject matter. To be clear, that doesn’t mean spending time on webmd. That means reading and understanding original research and truly understanding the science of your own conditions.

u sound like u been to da skool of farrage.

A bit of both really. On the one hand you've got patients who either are ignorant or have the wrong end of the stick because they've been reading garbage websites. On the other there's quite a lot of arrogant doctors who ignore veery basic things their patients are saying and resort to "Well I'm the doctor!" if you point it out. Especially if you are from many ethnic minorities, a woman, disabled, and/or fat--doctors' biases are well demonstrated in research.

I think the inability of drs in general to listen to patients is a huge issue. It's very evident in patients with chronic illnesses. I've chronic and rare illnesses , most of which drs have never heard of yet they known best 🙄🙄 my father is a diabetic though , one of the most common chronic illnesses and the amount of drs which haven't a clue is staggering , most of their info is out dated and they become highly insulted when told they are wrong. My father has an brain injury and he's received some dangerous advice over the years from clueless drs but I've now instructed him to only follow the advice of his diabetic specialist.

I’ve generally had good experience with doctors and felt respected but going through IVF I’ve never encountered more patronizing and arrogant doctors. While I know that nobody is ever going to care about your treatment outcome as much as you for the money I’m paying I’d hope they could at least fake some empathy instead of their ‘computer says no attitude.’

Ds is medically complex, so I am the expert in him and the doctors and others in his team are the experts in the individual conditions. We work together to come up with the best plan for him.

I phoned the GP yesterday, I had a plan of action in mind before, she explained why one part was probably not quite right and we agreed what to try.

its about teamwork and respecting others areas of expertise.

In my experience, a lot of 'expert' patients miss the point entirely. I've had people come into my clinic with a couple of printouts from pubmed demanding which type of suture they want for their surgery, looking very confused, or even angry when the conversation goes down the line of whether an operation is actually indicated or not.

I've been a GP Receptionist for 12 years so I am of course qualified in all things medical. I can spell diarrhoea, tonsillitis, gall stones and prostate which is more than my colleagues can.

There is no way I can read a medical report confidently even though there may be some words that I do understand and I would never interpret blood results for myself or anyone else. I really don't know why people come on Mumsnet to ask randoms about their blood results either.

That sounds really tough @BlueIvy11
I hope you do make a full recovery. It must be very frustrating you weren't listened to sooner.

I think the issue is that the average member of the public doesn't necessarily know which information is correct when they go to Google. You don't have the filter provided by years of medical study.

Isn't it well-known they have one day on the menopause, which affects literally half the population?

As in: "Today, class, we're covering the menopause"?
No, that's not how it works.

There are years of learning subjects that interconnect.
So, during anatomy the structure of female reproductive organs will be studied in detail; during endocrinology, relevant hormones will learnt about; pharmacology deals in detail with drugs etc.

It's not like you'll rock up with, eg, gallstones and the GP will say, "Bugger! I was away the afternoon we did that".

To be honest though, this actually is the case quite often, so you can see why it happens.

Doctors have a difficult balance to strike, because whilst they obviously need to treat those who need it, they shouldn't be wasting time and resources on people who can manage and improve their conditions with small lifestyle changes.

Isn't the point the OP is making just that - that because a patient is solely interested in their own symptoms and condition but a doctor (esp a gp) needs to know about a complete range of illnesses that may affect any of their hugely diverse patients, some people with good research skills may end up being more of an expert on their own body and conditions that they live with everyday and have researched comprehensively / discussed with other sufferers.

I agree it has clear dangers and limitations but I can also see the logic of it.

Wow, you have rather a high opinion of yourself OP. I have been interested in medical things since I was a child, but I don't for one moment think I know more than any GP. Surely you don't think doctors walk out the door from medical school and never study anything again?

JetTail

Incidentally, I had a GP ask me in a rather accusatory tone recently whether I had a medical background! I said that I hadn't. He said it's just that not many patients are familiar or use the term tachy. I'm like, well, honey, unfortunately, overhearing it and asking 'what does that mean?' basically means that it's now a term I'm becoming all too familiar with. I've been 'tachy' all too often.

You may have been mistaking an incredulous tone for an accusatory one.

Doctors are very used to patients dropping in medical terms (often, as a PP said, learned from television programmes).
You only have to read MN to see things like "projectile vomiting" used frequently and incorrectly.

You obviously do know what "tachy" means and I'm sorry that it's been a frequent enough occurrence for you to have learned that.
However, it's usually best not to throw medical terms around because the lay person's understanding and the doctor's understanding of the term may be quite different, whereas everyone can understand "I felt my heart racing" or similar.

I think I know what you mean a bit.

I’ve had lots of routine blood tests done privately and the full results have always been sent to me in a detailed report. I liked getting it. When something would come up that a doctor questioned I / we could refer to previous blood work and see if it was within the normal range for me.

When I was pregnant and the NHS did blood work I was always surprised that you don’t get to see the results. I even remember a midwife saying something on my blood work was a bit high so they’d arrange a consultant to check it out.. I asked “is it X? Because my X score is always on the high end of average?” But I wasn’t allowed to know (my own medical data?) and I saw a consultant, at huge expense to the NHS presumably, just for them to say “your X is on the high end of normal” and me to say “yes I thought as much. Here are 5 different blood test reports I’ve had privately that I’ve printed out for you. You can see that a high reading seems to be my normal”. They review my documents, say yes all seems to be fine .. no concerns and I go. I still don’t actually find out the score that was concerning them though. Exact same thing happens in second pregnancy. Owning my own medical data is important to me.

After my NHS scans I have always felt the need to book private ones too. Not because the NHS didn’t do anything right because they’d mention things like “Hm that’s a bit odd, let me check with a colleague..” - they’d consult, decided whatever was fine and that would be that. I wasn’t allowed to know the details. So then at a private scan the consultant (a lot are consultant performed) actually explains to you what they are seeing - what it would mean in a worst case but why they are happy. At my second birth something happened which had been mentioned at my scans could happen - I would only have known that because it had been explained to me privately.

YABU.
There is a difference between reading results and interpreting them in a clinical context.

Some patients with complex issues do know an awful lot about their condition and treatments etc. Maybe more so than a doctor who hasn't come across that particular issue before. But that doesn't mean they know as much about medicine as a doctor does, in general.

@Sirzy has it right. A patient particularly with a chronic condition is the expert in them. GPs / doctors are the expert in medicine. You work together as a team to explore the right treatment for the individual patient.

There is more to medicine than just reading an article/ NICE guidelines. You study how to interpret the evidence , take nothing on face value.
conditions and medications interact. Part of medicine is knowing your limits and asking for specialist advice . Doctors ask each other for expert advice all the time as no one knows everything- part of medicine is about accessing and communicating with the right expert.

You cannot however replace 20 - 30 years of professional experience with a bit of Googling!

Librarian here.

Do you think the majority of the population can tell the difference between a trustworthy website with valid medical information and peer reviewed journal articles vs a opinion based website edited by someone with no medical knowledge at all? Most first year degree students struggle with this and often site Wikipedia as a valid source of information.

However, I doubt my gp knew more about gallstones than I did after I'd done quite a lot of Googling

Ah yes. Those wasted years in medical school learning advanced anatomy, physiology, treatment, contraindications, colleague and self experience in a clinical setting etc of a very common condition could have been saved if they just did "quite a lot of googling" instead.

I get what you mean OP, it’s annoying to feel patronised like having basic scientific language like urine explained to you 🙄