Diagnosed miscarriage with symptoms, then told a heartbeat - anyone had similar symptoms?

[Janus]

My brother's partner is 12 weeks pregnant and on Friday at work she had an experience similar to your waters breaking before childbirth along with a loss of blood. She actually works in a hospital so went straight to the early pregnancy ward where they told her they were sorry that she had experienced a miscarriage.
Today she had a routine scan to confirm whether she would need to have a D&C (I think this is the right expression) or whether nature had taken care of everything. Today they were told there is a heartbeat afterall. It's been an emotional rollercoaster for them, and everyone really, and now they are obviously worried about this loss of fluid and some blood. They have been told there is nothing they can do and hopefully everything will continue to progress to full term but, of course, they are now very worried as to what could have happened.
Has anyone else had anything similar happen??
Of course we are all crossing our fingers for them but it would be a great help if I could pass on any similar positive experience and I thought I would try Mumsnet as it's worked so many times in the past.
Thanks.

I'd like to stand up for my GP and say that he's fab. I'm desperately hoping he won't make me change doctors now I've moved!

However, I've also dealt with some real idiots during my ante/post natal stuff at our hospital. No people skills at all. Do they get trained in "bedside manner" at all at med school?

I agree with SoupDragon, I also have a fabulous gp whom I love, but have had many whose people skills could be summarised on the back of a stamp. You've got to ask yourself WHY people like that bother to go into the profession at all.

One thing to that is really interesting is the lack of people skills that Dr's have. My dh, an actor, parcipitated in some GP training where the actors where aiming to teach body language and people skills ans the Drs found it facinating. It was a real sucess, but it goes to show how necessary it is.

However I have found tat all the Drs I have needed have been great, however I think that is becasue I ask questions and get involved in decisions the respect me and their attitude changes. Now my GP is great and all the various speciaists hae been great. That to e is teh answer, asking questions (i know it's not always possible)

As far as I remember dh (anaesthetist) didn't get any sessions on people skills/bedside manner at all. Trained '83-'90. But I always take him with me for hospital appts, he's great at taking my blood and ensuring that I get the best possible care. And he gets lots of thank you cards from grateful patients so I guess his skills aren't too bad.

There's a GP in our practice to whom I will never again take my DD, nor will I book an appointment for myself with him. His attitude when I saw him re DD's achalasia and lack of ability to eat was totally unhelpful.

Fortunately it's a group practice and the other three doctors we have seen have been fantastic as is the practice nurse.

docincognito, things could be worse - at least you're not a health visitor

SueW - our practice has one like that too. I'll wait longer for an appointment rather than see her after the time she refered to DS as "it" Funnily enough if you want an appointment a.s.a.p. she's always the one with appointments available before the others - wonder why?

There does seem to be a serious problem with doctors and their communication skills. Apart from some notable exceptions, including my GP whom I persist with even though I have to wait anything between 3 and 7 weeks for an appointment with her, simply because she is a straight talking Scot who never patronises me, goes always down the no medication route if possible and appreciates the fact that I only make an appointment if I really need to.

I'm sure we all have horror stories. I once had a GP who's answer to everything was 'lose weight'. Now I'm not the most svelt creature, but I got very p**d off when a persistently painful foot got that diagnosis when it turned out later - after seeing a locum - that I actually had 2 small broken bones. And, yes, I had told my GP about the bicycle accident that had preceeded the injury.

A doctor friend told me about his consultant who attended antenatal classes with his wife and was appalled at the misinformation, half truths and evasions that were peddled out to the expectant couples. I've posted at length about my own experiences of midwives and health visitors who persisted in talking baby talk to me while I was pg as if somehow my critical facilities disappeared the minute the egg was fertilised.

Like honeybunny, I now take dh along wherever possible. It's not that he's a doctor, but he's worked in the medical area for the last 15 years, lately at a rather famous children's hospital, and can cut through medic talk with a finely honed scapel. I will forever treasure the look of absolute horror on the consultant's face when the sluglet was in intensive care and dh started to interrogate him about the intracies of the test results.

So my apologies to those of you who are doctors or have doctors in your families, I'm sure you have excellent communication skills, but don't you think that for a caring profession there is a distinct lack of emphasis on the personal and social aspects of the job?

Absolutely slug !

IMO the problem with medicine is that it is too selective - in that they will only take you into med school with the very best A'level results - however - it is a fact of life that often those with the best results lack social skills.

It's probably time to come clean that I wanted to be a doctor (GP) all my life but was not academically clever enough. However, at uni I knew many med students and can honestly say that most of them were social misfits - the sort who never socialised but spent all their time with their noses in their books. The whole course was about results and very little even mention of how to treat people. So it is no wonder that they now lack the social niceties that we expect. Of course - add to that the horrendous hours and pressures they work under and it is no wonder that we have this situation.

Of course - I'm not suggesting they dumb down medicine - just that they consider more widely what other skills doctors need (specially GPs) as well as A'levels and this would also alleviate the hours as they could attract more doctors into the system.

Lots of courses now are far more 'people' based - many courses have you in the wards from day 1 to learn how to deal with patients, and my friends who have just gone through med school say they would be shot down if they were insensitive to a patient. So I think it is moving in the right direction. A-Level results to get into medicine aren't the highest either - certainly for vet courses you need higher.

Doctors these days who are being trained are trained in social and communication skills, and it is a part of the MRCGP Exam (Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners) which MOST new GP's (but not all) will have sat.
I always take my dh along to hospital appointmetns. He can take my blood much better than any hospital doc, and as he trained in the hospital where I have any appointments (small hospital), all the consultants know him and are therefore very accomodating to him! It is ridiculous that we have to go to these lengths to get the treatment we need, and I don't know what people who don't have this kind of backup must go through.
Communication skills are sadly lacking in older doctors, who trained int he 'doctor knows best' era, although there are some notable exceptions. Also, and I hesitate to say it, but in my experience it is true, a lot of hospital docs (less common among GP's) have trained abroad, and therefore have poor English. I know when my dh was training on the Obs/Gynae ward he was forever being berated by the Consultants for being late in theatre after he had consented people for the Gynae surgery list, but it turned out that when he went to get them to sign the forms, over 50% had no idea why they were there and he would have to start at square 1 explaining the whole thing to them (both the Gynaecologists were trained abroad).
The governmebt has recently downgraded the English exam for new doctors coming into this country! I dread to think what the misunderstandings could be in consequence!

RE the Misunderstandings of English topic. My Mother has a very strong regional accent, and went to her GP who has a very strong non UK accent. She asked for a referal to see the chiropodist, and he wrote her a letter to get sheltered housing !

Bundle, it's funny you mentioning Muir Gray - my Dad was at Uni with him - Dad as a (slightly) mature student and Muir as a very precocious and brilliant very young student. From what I understand/remember about him, he is a very people focussed person.

Janus,

I had exactly the same, in fact two lots of bleeding in the first 14 weeks (no waters breaking though) and both times doc said I was miscarrying. The early scan showed a heartbeat though. N

I think sometimes you do just bleed a little. My mum also bled when she carried both my brother and I.

All carried to full term. Tell her not to worry Im sure it will be fine.

JanZ, that's great to know..I found him very personable and helpful, really interested in giving accessible info to patients too.

Haven't time to read all this thread but the same happened to me last year when I was carrying twins.
The surviving twin is now 7 months old and pulling chunks out of my hair as I type.
More later, hopefully

Re spoken english:
my consultant's locum was polish and we had lots of misunderstandings due to the language barrier. Although my father is not from this country (so I felt mean doing it)I had to write and beg for an appointment with my actual consultant just before my due date, as I had some very delicate requests and fears (involving my bottom) to discuss with him. Bad enough trying to do that when english is your first language. I still felt guilty 'rejecting' her though, as she was a very nice lady and good dr. We just couldn't understand a blind word each other said.

Janus, What is happening on this one, I do hope that your brothers partner is still pregnant.

Very much so! She's now 6 months and at the 20 weeks scan was told it was a boy and everything is fine with him. They bought their first 'boy' outfit this weekend (they have a girl already) and, I think, are finally relaxing and positive (she had a few similar bleeds after this first but turned out it was her bleeding, nothing to do with baby, IYKWIM).
So, names are being chosen and everyone's getting excited! Thanks for asking Breeze, so nice to be able to post postively.

I haven't got time to read this whole thread tonight, but this happened to me and it was twins. The surviving twin is now snoring his head off upstairs (10 months. The miscarriage of his sibling went on for about 6 weeks (bleeding, cramps, fluid loss) and we didn't think we'd keep him.

Whoops! Didn't notice this was an old thread. Sorry everyone................

I am so Please Janus, this was one of the first threads that I read when I first found mumsnet and glad it is all going well