to be hopping mad at my GP after some cheeky remarks during a home visit?

[shootfromthehip]

Right- just to warn you I'm not impressed as I have been ill for days and have had to watch my house collapse around my ears as DH 'looks after the kids' ha.

Okay, have been in bed with nasty throat infection since Sat and after yet another miserable night and a bout of vomiting this morning, I got DH to arrange for GP to do a home visit so that I can get antibiotics. Having not eaten since Sunday I genuinely did not feel that I could make the mile walk in the rain with or without DC. When she got here, I was chastised for breaking with their policy as they don't do house calls- ??? she said from the end of my bed??? and then went on to tell me it was a severe infection but I was really lucky not to have the mutated boil/pustule variety which she would have to lance (I however, don't feel very lucky and suspect that she would have loved to lance my pustules- what a gross word- will stop using it immediately).

I was then given a lecture on the woes of foreign travel (I just came back from 2 very pleasant weeks in Spain and believe that I may have picked up this nasty condition on the flight) and how in some way my devil-may-care- approach to jetting round the world (to repeat, I went to SPAIN FFS) brought this on myself.

Now this GP and I have a bit of a history. I have been in her company at several functions and she has always been perfectly pleasant to the extent that she and her DH made a beeline for DH and I at the most recent. She is about 15 yr older than me and she decided to go back to work when her little ones were small. She has told me on several occasions that I should go back to work as I must be bored being a SAHM.

This came to a head when I went to see her recently for a chest infection (have not been a well woman this year) and she ran some tests. Fortunately they all came back clear, and she then told me that there was nothing wrong with me that going back to work wouldn't sort out- as obviously I am some sort of attention seeking loser who goes to the Doctors with all these imaginary illnesses. [hmmm]

When I told her she was out of order she then started saying that I just need a break from my kids (don't we all?) as I am obviously not coping with them (I am pretty much a single parent during the week) or I wouldn't have all these ailments. I admit that i have been done in this year but I'm fed up with this woman thinking she can cross professional boundaries about my choices. AIBU?

Your GP has taken a giant leap over the line of acceptability with you - both as your doc and as an acquaintance. Since it is not feasible to change GPs why don't you address this directly with her - ideally in person but if not in a letter? I fear your relationship with her will be intolerable if you don't express your feelings about her behaviour. She sounds well-meaning in a demented over-bearing kinda way - isn't there a chance she might be made to see how inappropriate her treatment of you was?

NEWSFLASH - GPs are HUMAN! Some are nice , some are not nice.

Did you tell her that you thought her comments were unacceptable? If not - how is she supposed to know?

yabu
I think you were very lucky to get a home visit and presumbaly the antib's you wanted?

sounds like she was just giving her opinion of why you are so ill
maybe it would be helpful to have some time off from the kids and work part time to ease your stress levels. Maybe that was all she was saying?

I think you need to not see her again
or just ignore what she says
she is being mean from the sounds of it
and it could be jealousy

on another note
FARK ME you get home visits

shitting hell

think yourself a little lucky

It sounds like the doc thinks of herself as a friend as well as your GP. I bet she thinks she is giving you good advice - afterall she must have been happy to go back to work.

yabu

maybe she was encouraging you to get some routine and focus outside the house? maybe she was suggesting that to feel more positive , having something just for you would be good?

she might have been miffed to have had to make a home visit to someone who was not on the brink of deaht, and could have have got a taxi to the surgery?

i do sympathise, i had to drag myself to the doctors last year with a temperature of 102 and a roaring chest infection .. but i could get myself to the srugery..

see a different doctor if you feel she has overstepped the mark

she might have only been suggesting things she has found helpful and feesl she can talk more forthrightly to you as you see them socially

I think calling a GP out to your house when you could have gone in is likely to set them on the wrong foot with you. She shouldn't have said some of the stuff she said, but as others have said, docs are only human.

You could have got a taxi to the surgery.

In my experience (I work with a number of GPs, mostly lovely) GPs find it difficult not to give advice as well as medication. Indeed they are trained to do so, as a fairly high proportion of the people they see have problems that are not just medical (especially the elderly and those with social problems, like poor housing etc), so a prescription or referral alone is not going to resolve their problem. If the GP also sees themselves as a friend this is likely to be compounded. She may well genuinely think that having an interest outside of the home would help. She may have found personally that work did the trick. She may have observed (or read) that infections are triggered by air travel. She may think professionally that having a break from childcare would help you get back on your feet after a tough year. But clearly the delivery isn't helping. Of course you may have got a bit of a haranguing because you called her out for what was a fairly minor illness as these things go. Anyway I don't think you should dismiss her advice, as some of it might be good. Is there any way you can get a bit of a break (not necessarily by going to work, maybe just to do something you would like to do)? Sometimes it is very easy to just go into coping mode, and getting lots of infections etc is your bodies way of telling you that you are pushing yourself too hard.

YANBU to be annoyed with her attitude, but it is completely avoidable, because there are other GPs available

And YABU to get a home visit when you are not highly contagious etc - your DH could have driven you or you could have got a taxi.

All valid points thank you. I know the home visit was almost a thing of miracles but you need to move to the arse crack of nowhere to get them .

I definately think she is trying to be pastoral rather than patronising but has firmly meandered into partonising and rude. After I got my bloods done and everything came back ok, I did tell her that I was totally unimpressed by her constant insistance that my health would be better if I worked part time. It's just really hard tto crack the whole authority thing around GP's. I suppose that I shall have to either complain or leave it alone.

If you have a GP who is also a friend/acquaintance you are both in a awkward position. Its hard for both of you to know where th professional/personal barrier should be drawn. I very much doubt she would have talked to you like that if you were an unknown patient. Try and see the other GP as much as poss and talk to her about keeping professional contact professional.

In the mean time remember that you are INCREDIBLY lucky to get a home visit of any kind at all. Here they tell you to get an ambulance to hospital if you consider yourself to ill for the surgery.

Message withdrawn

You can't be THAT remote if the surgery is only a mile away

I don't see why you are making such a huge thing of this - just see another GP

You seem to enjoy your role as 'victim' TBH

in fact I'm wondering if you are my mother

It is possible to live in a fairly remote village, and for the GP's practice to be based there. If it is really upsetting you you will have to complain, but it may make the relationship worse. Could you maybe get your husband to have a word next time you meet socially? Might be less confrontational.

God are you sure you are on the right thread? No one except you has mentioned viruses here...

Message withdrawn

TBH I thought I may have something seriously wrong with me as I was hideously ill. I have had two kids guys so am not about to have a 'man flu' attitude to illness. I have also walked back and forward to that bloody surgery more times than i care to remember with the various other illnesses this year. I just woke up feeling like death and still do. Now I feel bad that I was fortunate enough to have her come here. Actually no I don't, I did feel utterly horrendous and wasn't going to phone the doctor at all because of some of the stuff that she has said but thought I was cutting my nose off to spite my face. I got DH to call to see if the would give me antibiotics unseen and they then said that they would come out if I was that ill.

Confusing isn't it, even I can't decide if i'm being unbloodyreasonable or not

BTW did she swab you for the throat infection? There are some dodgy varieties of Strep A going round here and all throat infections have to be cleared by the lab and treated with the right antibiotic.

Don't think 'victim' was quite what I was going for- think baffled member of community who thinks her GP has aspirations for life coach was more it.

well it's tricky when someone is a social acquaintance and a professional

Just use another GP, or just smile and nod

Fortunately no swapping. I would have been on nothing for 3 weeks if the last lab results I waited on was anything to go by. Not that I'm having a go at labs, their employees, the NHS or anything else to do with them, just before I'm accused of that

Well Cod it does matter because with a virus generally all you can do is treat the symptoms and wait for your immune system to beat the virus (hence vaccination are the best population tool to treat viruses). However if you have a bacterial infection (like tonsillitis for example) then antibiotics are appropriate. That's why if you have flu type symptoms generally you should stay at home and generally look after yourself until you get better, whereas if you have an infection like tonsillitis you should get antibiotics. In this case the doctor told the OP that she did indeed have a severe infection. So perfectly appropriate to see the doctor, just lucky to have them visit.

I do think the informal approach is probably the way to go here, at least in the first instance. Oh, and I hope you feel better soon!