GP searching on Google!!!!

[Roseshavethorns100]

Hi to anyone who reads this post.
I was in my doctors for an appointment last week regarding getting hrt, told her I'd had a subtotal hysterectomy three years ago and listed my current symptoms, told her I just can't function properly anymore.
The next thing I know she's on Google reading out about the type of hrt that should be given after said hysterectomy.
Is this normal for Dr's to do? Am I wrong to be really annoyed about it?

Google gives the GP the opportunity to double check the advice they’re giving you is the latest & check for information which might’ve changed. Clearly, they’re not on Google finding you a medicine, they’re fact checking that nothing has changed. Imagine if they just went ahead and prescribed you an HRT based on the course they last attended 2yrs ago. Would it have bothered you if the GP went to their bookcase & opened up a printed book to research information?

I would prefer that is this day and age that doctors were up to scratch with this kind of medical complaint, it's not a rare affliction it's very common for women to need medication during perimenopause and menopause.

I certainly didn't say they should know everything but they should certainly have the the information on common conditions.

Seem like they don't study that specific area, considering the first point of contact is a gp before any referrals are made!!

My point is she still didn't have an answer after her search and was still completely unable to give me any answers and I left with nothing and no answers.

She’s using tools available me to her alongside her professional qualifications and experience, so I’d be ok with this. I think the worst impression you can walk away with is they didn’t care enough to try.

The clue is in the name OP ‘general practitioner’ they know a little about a lot - in fact - enough to give you ‘general’ advice and refer you if something more specialist is needed. I’d certainly rather they check something / Google it and give me up to date advice.

you say you won’t go back to ‘that GP’ but I’ll bet my house on all of them having to Google something at some point so I’d adjust your expectations if I were you

There is different combinations and gels and pill and patches. We don't all have the same HRT medication

There are so many common conditions nowadays though and they cannot be expected to remember absolutely everything.

Medicine is so much more complex than it was. Years ago there were probably only a handful of different drugs to prescribe, nowadays there are loads.

I am a cancer nurse and believe me, it is so difficult to keep up with pharmacological and technological advances. And that’s just in one speciality. Education isn’t prioritised so there is no time to learn and research this stuff.

You said in your initial post that you had a complication so why would a GP know the exact treatment to give you? You must know that there are loads of different treatments for HRT, which itself is not a simple condition that affects all women in the same way.

How old was the book?

I didn't say I had any complication!

She might have been using Google to help her find the page on a particular website she was looking for.

I did that but she paid no attention to it at all. It's not free to see a doctor here!!! So put of pocket and no better off for it😬

If they don't know they should know who to refer you to though.

The BNF and other prescribing regimes are all online now and regularly updated. If prescribing under the NHS there are guidelines. GPs prescribe for hundreds of different conditions, it’s not actually good practice to rely on memory so “Googling” info is actually good practice. However the sites available to them are not likely to be the “Dr Google” sites most patients use to symptom check.
As a dentist I frequently search for side effects of drugs because we often see problems in the mouth that are linked to medication. But we tend to use Google Scholar which filters out any rubbish.

Absolutely this. People are so quick to complain about things today without any idea what healthcare professionals have to deal with on a day to day basis.

What is your job OP?

I've had the same experience, they are only human! They can't possibly know everything off by heart, and I'm glad to see if they're unsure, they're filling in the gaps in their knowledge.

The longer I went on in my career as a GP the more I felt I needed to double check things. I used the clinical knowledge summaries on NICE a lot. I would look things up in front of patients. You had to know what to look up though and know that what you are looking at is good practice...it was really just a memory jog for us. It's not just a random Google search.

I also had a wonderful woman's health book I received at an update which had about 400 pages in it and about 4 were dedicated to HRT. One of the best pages was all the current HRT that was written out with all the different doses so I could compare one preparation with another. I kept it on a shelf above my desk so it was close to hand. I had a lot of HRT patients as I was in my 50s and one of my male colleagues sent them all to me. He actually knew a lot so not sure why he did this.
The amount of knowledge we are expected to have as a GP is phenomenal. Imagine having to have a reasonable knowledge about everything in the body. The only other people who really have that are care of the elderly specialists. When I started out there were many more "general physicians or surgeons" but now they have subspecialised and it's amazing how their knowledge of other organs is way below my knowledge.
Also things develop at a huge speed and I really found the changes in diabetes management and heart failure for example quite difficult to get into my head after I turned 50 (blame menopause!!!) yet we are accused by some patients of knowing nothing.

When the GP trainees join us for their year in practice they find it really hard jumping from one system of the body to the other. It is not an easy job. I had a gastroenterologist sit in with me one day and she was astounded at how I (and other GPs) could possibly know so much.

As PPs have said, a lot of the skill of being a doctor (or other professionals, such as a lawyer) is not knowing all the answers. Rather, it’s being able to identify trusted and accurate sources (such as googling the BNF or other academic databases). Similarly, they can apply a degree of professional rigour to testing and sense checking the info provided. This is the crucial skill most members of the public lack.

Healthcare professionals also have a much greater knowledge of “redlines” and safety gating - such as the circumstances not to prescribe certain high risk meds.

Many reasons - most up to date information, quick reference, they know which sites are medically safe to follow. I work in medical research and haven't r been to a library in years it’s all up to date online

As one example, I’ll open google and enter BNFc and the name of the drug I want to prescribe, so I can check the dose, as they no longer give us a hard copy of the dose book. Technically googling, but not really. Or if I’m double checking the inheritance of a 1 in a 200,000 rare genetic disease the parent has just told me about, I’ll start with google, but that’s to find the right page of on Mendelian inheritance in man, not to read someone’s blog page.

It might be common for women to have hrt but subtotal hysterectomies are not so common…

We don’t have your medical history like your GP. There may be other factors that need to be taken into consideration.

Am I wrong to be annoyed? Yes
Well you're all wrong.

Perhaps the GP knows you think you know more than they do and wanted to check where you got your info from