is it wrong to point out when doctors missed a diagnosis?

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A year and a half ago I started going to our gp about dd who was 2.5 as she had weeks of diarrhea, awful stomach pains and would hardly leave her pushchair any more. These have continued, with intermittent constipation, until now. Several doctors listened to me query whether it could be coeliac disease or an allergy but didn't test for anything and suggested i keep a food diary.. I was so worried dd was suffering and so pale i complained not enough being done but hated doing so as think doctors are basically wonderful people! I just didn't feel they were interested in finding what was causing this urgently and dd certainly was still a normal weight. I pushed for a referral to a gastroenterologist who ran blood tests and gave me a laxative to give her which rightly or wrongly i never did as how was that going to help?
Eventually we saw a private doctor about something else and i mentioned these stomach pains and they immediately organised a stool test and found she has giardia , an amoebic parasite which explains so much and can even stunt growth in children if they have it long enough (dd is tiny and I often wondered about this as dh and i both tall)
Do you think it's worth me writing to the doctors we saw? I thought i'd say a stool test would have helped her and that I wanted to let them know in case useful for other cases. Or is this unnecessary? I know most doctors do their best under great pressure too.. Thanks for any thoughts.

Definitely write to them.

They might not have seen it before and may welcome the info. It's all about how you phrase it.

Why didn't you give her the laxative? DS was recently very constipated (awful stomach pains, diarrhoea, lethargic etc) and he took them for a week and it helped a LOT.

AFAIK a stool test wouldn't be standard for initial NHS tests..

Are you based in the UK? Had you been abroad?

I think that it would be helpful for you to write to the doctors that you saw, it will be interesting for them to know what the outcome was for your DD. If you are in the UK and hadnt travelled this would be a relatively rare diagnosis, so would probably not have been the first thing that anyone thought of when they saw your DD.

Yes you should write to them.
I had a similar experience with DD, she was ill for 3 weeks, vomiting and big swollen eyes and our GPs gave 3 wrong diagnoses and 2 lots of useless antibiotics.
after taking her into A&E in the end where she was kept in over night due to dehydration and enlarged liver they diagnosed Epstein Barr virus.

I was with the GPs and now I don't really trust their judgment which is sad.

By the way, I understand why you didn't give the laxatives, sometimes things don't add up and it's good to trust your instincts as well as listening to the professionals.

Thanks everyone for your replies, I didn't see them til now as stupidly posted thread twice, sorry!
We hadn't been abroad (except US but i think she already had giardia by then) but I've since heard a friend got giardia in London too and he too struggled to get a diagnosis. I'm going to warn dd's nursery as it can spread apparently.

Pureasthecold I didn't give the laxatives as I didn't think they'd found the cause of the stomach pains or why dd didn't seem to be absorbing nutrients properly and constipation didn't feel so much the real problem if that makes sense.

I think I might only write to the gastroenterology team at our local hospital who we saw as they won't get the follow-up letter from the private doctor I don't think and will try just to simply say what dd turned out to have in case it was useful and thank them for seeing her.

Framey i understand you trying A&E and it sounds so lucky you did. we did go to A&E once as dd's pains seemed that bad but they diagnosed coeliac which other doctors then didn't agree with. And I felt bad as they said we shouldn't have come to the emergency bit and I was wrong but felt so worried with dd crying about her tummy still

Is DD still considered contagious? If so, you need to be prepared for the fact that the nursery may be unwilling to take her back....

It's meant to be fine to mix a few days after her antibiotic finishes I've read but I was going to check with doctor who is anyway getting her stools checked again after this treatment.

I would let the medical profession who dealt with her know. I'm a nurse and frequently have to assess childrens tummy pains, diarrhoea etc. I have heard of giardia but its not something that springs immediately to mind. ...will look it up now....How interesting!

If DD did not pick it up abroad then the likely source would be the nursery. Its not particularly common in this country (3000 in 2006) and seems to be mostly caught in countries with poor sanitation.

In future I will think about stool samples looking for this parasite for ongoing diarrhoea.

I would get the doctor to write a letter.

Our gp missed something with dd and the doctor/ consultant who picked it up wrote a letter to our GP practice explaining what was missed.

I felt it came better from another medical professional.