to think most GPs just fob you off

[littlestmummystop]

I have my own GP in a big new shiny surgery but never get to see her as she is always booked up and often goes on holiday. So I get a different one every time I go..

I am a pretty healthy person luckily, but really don't feel like I can trust most GP's opinions. They always seem to just go for the easiest diagnosis.

I can see why so many people's cancers etc. are missed by shoddy GPs.

The latest advice is for people to stop bothering GPs with minor ailments, but you have to wait so long for an appointment I can't see why anyone would go unless they have to.
Then when you finally do get there, they are usually so dismissive that only people who complain the loudest will get proper care.
I understand they have a tough job but I can't help but feel most have a sense of superiority and are left not answerable to anyone.

AIBU?

What about this

I think the thing about GPs salaries is neither here nor there really, and is detracting from the debate.

I have been thinking that the real answer to the OPs comments are "it depends" - maybe the issue is about the fact that in all walks of life, all professions, all occupations etc there are dedicated, committed and caring people, there are those somewhere in the middle and there are those (hopefully in the minority) who are incompetent or not suited to the job they are doing and that this is just all part of the human condition.

Kewcumber - thought you might have had the good grace to acknowledge my climb-down which your comments prompted!

Oops - sorry yes you're quite right I should have!

FWIW I am very sympathetic to your position on the JH debates and often lurk (though rarely post) and if this thread informs how you respond in future then I think that is all to the good.

Only think with that Kewcucmber is my recent experience with pneumonia. Normally with similar symptos I wouldn't have bothered a GP. But it was the firstd ay back to school after the holiday so I knoew that I had to have a sick note to cover any time off, so I had to speak to a GP to sort that. Else I wouldn't have bothered. And it was only because I had seen the GP 3 days earlier that I felt I should give him a call when my cough was still bad - if I hadn't done that (like I wouldn;t have most other times) I would actually have ended up really really ill, dangerously ill potenital, rather than the very poorly that I become. Nw, as a result, I am really paranoid abut every cough and cold symptoms - I reckon I will end up seeing the GP too much as a result at least for the next year or two. But I daren't not.

sorry i think mostly YANBU op. i think if you have specifics to post about that would be interesting. have gps got your care wrong?

though i must say the single worst experience of my healthcare life has been from a GP who (long, long ago) basically told me i was lying

but that was one gp, on one day, decades ago

i used to work as a secretary in a gp practice. the gps were alternately amazing and infuriating - one of the most infuriating things was how they would nearly kill themselves for their patients, worry about them, miss meals for them, schmooze consultants for emergency appointments, research obscure treatments, talk to carers, spend time at their deathbeds - and then do really daft things like talking loudly about patients within the hearing of others, get sloppy about records so that they had no leg to stand on when complaints were made etc. in other words they were human.

some gps are just an awful lot more human than others, and the same goes for patients

oh and btw, spend 2 hours working as a medical receptionist and then come back and complain. i know they can be a nightmare (one of ours was) but they take an incredible amount of abuse, more than you'd believe possible, and ours used to have a regular group of lonely frail people who rang every day to talk through their lives, I think they were a social service.

I think on balance YABU. My current GPs are amazing, really helpful and reassuring. DH has a number of complicated health problems and they are just brilliant. Also when I take the children (usually after 5+ days of cold/D&V or with baby wheezing badly) and they deal with it sensibly.

BUT, my last practice was awful. My gran was signed up to it as well and when she went with severe pain to ask for painkillers was told it was arthritis and what else should she expect. We then looked after her at home till mum couldn't cope (and the dr was very unpleasant about). It turned out she had septacaemia and died 2 days later. My sister was also told her localised stomach pain with constant vomiting couldn't under any circumstances be appendicitis. Guess who was being operated on for peritonitis and appendicitis 3 hours later...

Most GPs do a very good job in difficult circumstances but there are the odd few who let everything down.