GP displaying family photos, children's pictures dedicated to 'daddy' or 'mummy'

[Ilovepastafortea]

I'm lucky in that I've only had 2 miscarriages.

A friend of mine's DIL has now just had her 5th. Friend went to GP with her & was upset to see GP had pictures of their children & pictures obviously done by their children with annotations saying things like 'I love you daddy'.

This is all rather cute & lovely, but my friend thought rather insensitive when her DIL had recently lost a much wanted 5th PG. She also had concerns about women who are seeking fertility treatment - do they really need to be reminded how fertile their GP is?

We had a long discussion: we considered that on the plus side it shows that the GP is a family person with children & the inference is that they understand the problems of having a family. We considered that people who work in banks, in Boots, therapists, the supermarket, the Jobcentre could argue the same point. They don't display their children's photos.

I agree with her, family photos & personal pictures have no place in a GP's consulting room.

So AINBU thinking the family photos have no place in GP consulting rooms?

How dare doctors display anything about being people in their own right. Yes you're being totally unreasonable.

I understand it may cause distress to some people but these people are humans too. Those pictures may get them through the day. Make them smile after being screamed at while working a long shift. Make them smile after having to tell some one some horrible news.

It's awful and i sympathise but you cannot be offended by people having children.

A massive over reaction. Unfortunately the world doesn’t stop when someone loses a baby, whatever the sad circumstances. It’s terribly sad for the grieving family but other people are entitled to have children and display their family photos.

I'm more concerned about a mother in law going with her daughter in law to the GP to discuss fertility issues, rather than her partner/ husband.

Where is he in this?

I don't really know how this lady's GP could be expected to know about her DIL's predicament?

And then choose to take down his children's pictures as a direct result of that. It wasn't her DIL that the doctor was seeing?

So they may have moved it if there was someone who'd recently had a loss, you've no way of knowing.

I'm sorry for their losses. But the doctor displaying their family pictures or drawings in itself shouldn't be taken as an insult.

To be fair I dont like to think of hcp as normal people as I then feel weird undressing infront of them. I like to live in the land of denial that my drs are just drs and nothing else. But as for this specific post the op is being very unreasonable

I think YANBU given all this. It sounds completely over the top. One photo or card, fine, but all that in a workplace. Someone up thread said it’s a private office, but it’s really not, it’s a consulting room! And the environment should be appropriate and professional. What would people think, for example, if there was specific religious or cultural symbolism all over the room?

I think anything like this in the workplace is a bit cringey

I think it’s one of these slam dunk reasonable for the DIL to be upset, but not unreasonable for GPs to have personal items in their offices.

They see a huge range of patients, and each of those patients encounters the rest of the world before and after their GP appointment.

We could say they should be totally sanitised of any personal features, so as to avoid any adverse comparison point for their patients. But then they become robots.

To the DIL, the child stuff was difficult. To someone going through a messy divorce the wedding ring is difficult. To someone with disordered eating, the GPs weight can be an issue. Their skin colour. Their accent. Etc. etc.

They need to be professional in their engagements, not to be turned into detached robots. Tough things in life are tough. It would have been tough in a totally blank room, and something else would have taken the brunt of the distress because it happened to catch the eye instead.

This is nuts. Unless it’s a doctor who specialises in miscarriages it may seem tactless, otherwise no.

@Ilovepastafortea For all you know, and your 'friend', those photos of children - they could be adopted or through IVF.

You both assume so much by crediting them to the dr's 'fertility'.

I understand that this could be upsetting but at the same time there are surely assumptions here that those are the GP's biological children or that they didn't have fertility issues themselves.
That said we do have a 'clear desk' policy in my workplace.

Sorry, I don't agree. I have had more than my fair share of miscarriages and shed many tears in my GPs office. One of the GPs who had photos of his family empathised with me and told me that his wife had also suffered multiple miscarriages too. A reminder that you never know what journey someone has been through to have their family. Even if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't have thought it was insensitive to have family photos.

Thank you & noted.

This website is mainly for parents OP, so you’re going to get a lot of responses outraged at the idea that parents’ feelings shouldn’t be prioritised. I appreciate some posters have specified that they have struggled with infertility themselves (though not always clarifying whether they went on to have children), but my guess is that if you posted on a dedicated infertility forum rather than a parents’ forum, you would get a slightly different tone of response. So maybe just bear in mind there’s some inevitable selection bias involved in the responses from posters on a forum called Mumsnet.

I’m much older now, but during my childbearing years I had five miscarriages. Yes, it hurt deeply, but life had to go on around me. I had colleagues and friends whose pregnancies continued on after I’d lost mine. I attended baby showers with gifts for the new babies. It was soul-crushing at times, but I wouldn’t have wanted them to hide their photos or happy celebrations because of me.

Sorry but this is ridiculous.
I don't really know what else to say but you really can't expect other people to hide the fact they have children and that children exist, it is just a fact that children exist because all adults were children once. They are just not fully grown adults, so all humans are a reminder that children exist.
They exist, and GPs should be able to have a picture of their family on their desk to remind them why they are doing the job, when they are looking at smelly ingrowing toenails, puss filled boils, genital warts, being coughed at and all the other things that I would not like to do so do not do that thankless but necessary job.
Being upset about the pictures is a very self centred view point.

I can understand that babies and children are probably a very sensitive topic for anybody who is in your/your friends position.

However, kindly, it is like walking down the road and passing somebody cooing over their baby in the pram and accusing them of being insensitive, so not sure how this differs.

It is important for your/your friends sake to accept that some people do already have babies and children, it doesn’t make them bad or insensitive.

Sending love - your time will come.

It's pretty obvious really- sperm donor, egg donor, etc- jumping to conclusions about someone who know nothing about.

Unless they'd gone to see a fertility consultant, maybe you both need to give your heads a wobble.

What a tone deaf comment.

Your friend is being very unreasonable, as is her daughter

should everyone’s life be put on hold because of her miscarriages? Should other people she goes to see, dentist, bank manager, whoever also be told not to have family photos on desk? Should Her colleagues be told not to have family photos in case it upsets someone?

I don’t doubt she is going through a bad time, but no one should be expected to stop showing family photos in any way because some people can’t have children

The last miscarriage I had meant me sitting in EPU with a load of pregnant women, knowing I was losing my baby, THAT was insensitive, it was 25 years ago don't know if things have changed.

I've had 7 miscarriages, 5 over 5 years before having my eldest and luckily now have 2 children. Even at the worst time I wouldn't have thought anything of this, there's oversensitive and then there's this!are GPs not allowed to walk incase they offend patients who use wheelchairs? Not allowed to have clear skin incase someone comes in with acne? Not allowed partners incase their patient is widowed? So weird

I think extremely unreasonable. The presence of some art or a family photo in a Dr’s office tells you nothing about their own personal struggles. I doubt very much patients in poor health dismay at seeing their GP’s because they look healthy & therefore are showing off what they haven’t got.

They haven't! Or hadn't 5 yes ago almost to the day when I last had an EPU visit