Can we have a thread on ridiculous things GP's have said?

[Butmummysnotanearlybird]

My contribution was "Oh well baby needs to know what sick tastes like" when they actually had CMPA and reflux. I'm sure there's worse out there 🙃

Asked my mil if she could be pregnant, she was 70. Gave us a good laugh 😂

My gp is wonderful, but an a+e Dr once told me 'you can't pick and choose what medical treatment you have, I tell you what you have'. She got a consultant when I asked what the point of patient consent was then. What I wanted was to speak to my specialist before we started talking about exploratory surgery. The consultant said got the specialist, exploratory surgery was completely unnecessary.

“It’s indigestion” - secondary hepatitis to a blocked gall duct. Required surgery 24 hours later to remove my gallbladder. In fairness, when I went back to get a fit to work for certificate the GP could not have been more helpful…

“It’s just anxiety/baby blues” - episiotomy had been sewn up poorly and I had a prolapse. I ended up having to have surgery for both

“You’re too fat. Eat lettuce. You never saw any fat people in Belson”.
True but talking to a vulnerable teen, that wasn’t the way to speak. Plus they had no idea what Belson was.

So the problem isn't bad GPs it's talking about bad gps 🙄

" no your child doesn't have asthma"

Several hospilisations , multiple courses of Abs and steroids and Inhalers not to mention the eczema and hay fever that go hand in hand with asthma, later and I find out at an appointment fir some thing else , so purely by accident really that she's " classed as asthmatic "

I'd have never known if I hadn't gone that day

Those of you who "have a GP" who you love ... Are very very lucky. Not to love them but to have one. I don't think I've seen (spoken to on the phone) the same GP twice in the last twenty years.

My contribution to the thread "you've got a very pretty face it's a shame youre overweight" told to me in my 20s.

I don't think this is a horrid thread. Yet.

GPs do come out with some corkers and maybe they'd improve if they could learn to laugh at themselves. I've heard GPs insist that breastfeeding was a failsafe method of contraception, that my inability to walk was in my head (scans showed otherwise) and I didn't need a referral to a gynaecologist because I didn't have the classic warning signs of a cyst (I did and private scans showed it). On each one of these occasions I would have liked a brief follow up meeting with the practitioner to say actually I had a baby because of your advice/had to pay for a private referral and access treatment outside the NHS. I would even have seen the funny side. The fact that I didn't get that opportunity makes me more likely to contribute to a thread like this tbh.

Instead I have never ever heard a GP admit they were wrong or that they needed to read up on anything.

All babies have colic when ds was screaming all day every day for weeks.

The last straw was when a doctor told me that my 5 month old baby could go 3 days without eating.

He had refused all food. No bottle at all.

He was in agony. After my dh argued with the doctor we were referred to hospital that day. Ds was diagnosed with CMPA and severe reflux.

Changing his milk did wonders. He came home a brand new baby

Which considering the GPs at my practice drive BMWs and go on four holidays a year while working part time, makes me wonder if they need a bit of structure in their lives. They really do, I'm not making that up.

Went to see the GP about terrible hormonal migraines that I was getting for seven to ten days every month around the time of my periods, and about how heavy and painful my periods were getting. She said 'And have you had a hysterectomy at all...?' 🤔

What a horrible thread.
I'm not a doctor but a teacher and know what damage threads like this do to an already overworked and demoralised profession.
No good can come of this and the thread should be taken down.
But if criticism IS to be condoned on here, then I will point out the mis-spelling of BelsEn.

See? Not nice, is it?

GPs: THANK YOU for all you're doing.

I think I've had some great GPs. I remember having terrible problems with my back and hip after youngest son was born. I saw a chiropractor and it really improved. I had an appointment with my GP for a review, he was talking MRI and hospital referral, and I told him about the chiropractor and that I was so much better but my DH thought it was like seeing a snake oil salesman. Dr smiled and said, "Who cares, if it helps it doesn't matter does it." I thought that was a very sensible response.

Same GP was monitoring DDs weight, she was never interested in food and by 4 was seriously underweight. All the other mums I knew with similar issues were saying their doctors were saying don't pander to them if they are fussy, they will eat when they are hungry. My doctor said, "Just give her what she wants, she will be in hospital in the next couple of weeks if she loses anymore so if she will eat chocolate, cake, chips just give it to her and we can worry about her teeth when she's a healthy weight." Again I thought it was sensible.

Another doctor, same surgery, saw me when I was bleeding in early pregnancy. She checked me over and said, "Go home, go to bed and rest." I asked if they would improve the chances of pregnancy being OK. She said, "No, not really but I'm thinking of your mental health. I think everything will be OK but if it isn't I don't want you to be questioning if you could have done more." I did what she said and thankfully all was well.

My 90 year old grandmother was at the GP who recommended bike riding to help her fitness.

My (ex)GP cried when i told her about a particuliar ailment because she thought she had it too.
It was a minor ailment and I just needed a prescription.
She also asked if I needed to take my HRT (estrogel) every day!!

You shouldn't leave the house (whilst attending about a skin infection in my face). I asked why. It's not pleasant for people to have to look at you.

True but its highly probable little of what has been written on here is actually correct.

GPs are leaving not just because of how they are treated by their employers but also how they are treated by patients.

I 'm friends with a GP who moved to NZ, a brilliant Doctor, main reason for leaving the NHS was the sneery remarks (and casual violence) from people he was trying to help, who only thought he had one patient a day to care for.... as he put it:
"You re late for the next patient because you have had to give some extremely bad news to the parents of a child, your next patient has a go at you because of the delay, they then complain they had a headache this morning, it went after talking some painkillers but they now demand a scan because they think they have a tumour, threatening you with a complaint to the practice manager because you won't refer them"

My GP had written “looks very young for her age”

she had left the room so I took a photo of it 😂

The GPs I usually see are fantastic. Cannot fault them. However, I did see a different doctor in the practice once who just said 'Young women faint'. I was 30 and had never fainted before.

My pollen allergy [hay-fever] was because of my weight. If I lost weight the hay-fever would go 😕

I think it’s perfectly possible to appreciate the work that GP’s do while also acknowledging that they’re human and some of them say silly things.
I can think of three times where a GP has said something silly to me, and they range from downright dismissive and rude (the GP who laughed and suggested I just needed a massage when I went to her with a shoulder injury which I’m now on the waiting list for physio for) to dangerous (the one who told me I was fine when I ended up in hospital the next day with an infection going septic) to clearly being down to them being overstretched (the one who quite bluntly told me my conception issues were down to a congenital defect I have and told me to “Google it” if I had any questions).

These are the only three instances I can think of through my entire life, so I don’t think that’s a bad run at all, but they did happen. And at the time I was too ill/anxious/upset to say anything back.

Yes there are some horror stories on here but it sounds to me as if some of the so-called stupid questions, like What is dairy? What is hoarding? What is sleep paralysis? are intended to find out what you mean by those terms in your case. For example, sure eggs don't come from cows but in relation to diet it is very usual to lump them in with milk and cheese. How badly is your body affected by the sleep paralysis (subtext: are you talking about pins and needles here?). Etc. So questions designed to explore, not necessarily indicating ignorance on behalf of the GP.

Current GP - and all at the practice - absolutely fantastic.

However... worked in the Highlands in the past & the village GP, who had apparently wanted to be a car mechanic, was legendary- and not in a good was. I asked about Lyme disease, spread by ticks, which were everywhere. Said he'd never heard of it and asked me to find out about it & go back and tell him... Went in & asked specifically for Beconase - had never heard of that either & had to look it up. It's a really, really common hay fever spray. And followed this by prescribing the wrong thing 😆. Gave flatmate, age 27 & in LTR, a lecture on sex before marriage when she enquired about the pill... Nothing dangerous but completely batshit

Another but not about me. My best friend has a lot of complex health conditions, not least brittle bones. She can turn over in her sleep or sneeze and break a rib or catch her arm awkwardly and break her wrist etc etc.

She is in assorted more than usual painkillers on the level of morphine and higher and still in a lot of pain daily . She has three doctors at her surgery. One of them is not allowed to treat her anymore by order of the other two doctors as well as friend herself since the doctor told her that the pain was likely in her head and had she tried several homeopathic remedies to help her?

Diarrhoea seven times a day? No need to investigate, just carry Imodium.

Doctors are polarised. Either amazing or totally shit and no middle ground. People are afraid to challenge the shit ones for fear of being labelled or care stopping.
same with nurses. Great or horrendous and really shit