Are GPs useless?

Raumarik · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:13

I disagree, there are good and bad GPs just like every other profession. My current GP is superb and very helpful. In fact after 20 years or describing the same thing to doctors at 5 different GP practices I immediately got a referral from my current GP (who's under 35, only been practicing a few years).

When I compare the number of poor GPs I know (and I work with them daily) with the number of poorly skilled people in I.T. though it's probably about the same.

LordSplodge · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:13

powlesY said:
I've been far too vague for you to know what i've gone through, so please mate, get off that elitist high-horse.

Neither do you know what I've gone through. I've been seriously ill (with no hope of a cure) for longer than you have been alive. I've had bad experiences with the NHS but without the mostly excellent care I've got from them I'd be dead.

Go see PALS if you don't think your getting the care you need.

arknor said:
yup ive mentioned that a few times on here before, usually the monitor is facing away from you but you can clearly see the google logo in their glasses

I've got decades of experience with the NHS all over the country. I've never seen a GP or other medical professional use Google for diagnosis*. Nor have I even seen one with the monitor facing away from me.

I'd expect the use of Google to diagnose a condition would be frowned upon at best.

* I've seen plenty use specialist text books though. GPs cant know everything. The General bit means just that.

Hostile-17 said:
You did post in an open forum. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, you may or may not agree with!

My opinion always divides people. Just the way it is.

Hostile-17 · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:15

My opinion always divides people. Just the way it is.

the world would be a boring place without it

regulus · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:24

Maybe they'll be more interested if they didn't have to service a nation of moaning hypochondriacs that run to the GP for every little niggle. Even on this very forum there was a thread on illnesses and afflictions people suffer on here. It ran into tens of pages.

Start charging for GP visits. Only £20 or so. Hopefully it'll dissuade the moaners from the real sick people and GPs will take their work and people serious again.

powlesY · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:25

LordSplodge said:
Neither do you know what I've gone through. I've been seriously ill (with no hope of a cure) for longer than you have been alive.

Why are you making it out like a competition again? I thought i was the kid?

Sorry to hear about whatever problems you've got but there's no need to discredit mine. It's like you're trying to outdo me with age and experience when i've never questioned it. I'm not being ignorant to your health issues, so please don't be ignorant to mine.

GreatAuk · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:26

My parents both are/were both medics so I don't think I've ever actually seen my GP (In fact I don't have 'a GP', I'm just registered to the practice), and good job by some of the stories my dad tells me! My mum did actually need to go to them for some stuff and it worked out ok because she already knew what she needed, but that didn't stop it being a complete pain to actually get an appointment...

Tbh being a GP sounds like a pretty boring job to me, seems to need a less in depth knowledge, and less time commitment than being a hospital physician, yet they still seem to make a bomb - maybe as compensation for it being boring...

robgmun · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:31

From experience i had enough with the NHS, I'll be going private very soon as every time we have a problem everyone, and i mean everyone in the NHS behave like a bunch of armatures. I'm sick to death of all the screw-ups and unprofessionalism. The way they have treated my gf over the last few months have been shocking and i will be building a case against them.

Jolteh · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:36

regulus said:
Start charging for GP visits. Only £20 or so. Hopefully it'll dissuade the moaners from the real sick people and GPs will take their work and people serious again.

That pretty much goes against the single most important principle that the NHS was founded on. ("Free at the point of entry.")

robgmun said:
From experience i had enough with the NHS, I'll be going private very soon as every time we have a problem everyone, and i mean everyone in the NHS behave like a bunch of armatures. I'm sick to death of all the screw-ups and unprofessionalism. The way they have treated my gf over the last few months have been shocking and i will be building a case against them.

Not to pee on your campfire, but you'll be seeing the same doctor you'd have seen on the NHS, just sat in a different office.

Nightglow · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:51

Nothing but praise for my present surgery & my GP, reluctantly went to him feeling rough, & with a faint rash, within minutes he diagnosed chicken pox (third time)plus a temperature of 109 & pneumonia.
999 job to hospital, spent two weeks in ICU,& several months recovering, got too darn close to those pearly gates :eek:

.
My local hospital & staff were brilliant.

Raumarik · 10 Jul 2012 at 14:58

robgmun said:
From experience i had enough with the NHS, I'll be going private very soon as every time we have a problem everyone, and i mean everyone in the NHS behave like a bunch of armatures. I'm sick to death of all the screw-ups and unprofessionalism. The way they have treated my gf over the last few months have been shocking and i will be building a case against them.

What shocks me is the amusing ignorance of people like yourself regarding private versus public health care. Do you honestly think it's not the same GP, surgeon or consultant who'll be seeing you? They have the same constraints, the only difference is that they can hurry it along a little bit. But if the diagnosis is incorrect that's not going to help.

billyboyd · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:10

robgmun said:
I'd say a majority are shockingly bad, I've met a handful who are quite good but they are so few and far between

That is pretty much the same conclusion I have reached.

yer_averagejoe · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:14

Whenever I go to the GP (not often) I try to go in with a fresh state of mind and give them my trust. That trust is always shattered as soon as they fail to diagnose me or treat me properly. Actually, since I've only been to my GP for three separate illnesses, I'll give you a breakdown of what happened:

1) Sore rib cage: having difficulty breathing. Told to wait it out and return if it got worse. diagnosis was torn lining between ribs and lungs or something. I took it easy for a couple of weeks and it cleared up. No complaints here really.

2) Tonsillitis. I'd come down with this major-bad. First (and last) time I've had it and oh boy, I've never experienced pain like it. When I was so weak I could hardly walk I got a lift to the GP and he prescribed me the wrong anti-biotic. I'd looked on the internet before-hand and found that there were i think 2 antibiotics that are almost always prescribed for tonsillitis. It wasn't one of these and it didn't work. Went back (after the full course) and he gave me one of the two I'd found in my own research. That worked. So I effectively had to endure an excruciating several days for no reason.

3) A red mark appeared on my back after cycling in muddy and wet conditions. The mark grew outwards in a sort of halo/ring type fashion until it covered my entire back. I saw the GP who told me it was a fungal infection. He prescribed me some cream. It didn't work. I went back and he prescribed some anti-biotics and scheduled an appointment for the dermo ward at the local hospital. The antibiotics he gave seemed to work and by the time I got the the dermo appointment, the thing had disappeared though i could still feel it where it had started. A few months later, I did some more research and the only thing I can find that matches the condition is Lyme disease. So the doctor may have got lucky and cured it by accident. Even if it wasn't Lyme disease, the symptoms matched perfectly and I'm a bit miffed that the doctor didn't suggest it. It can be fatal, after all.

So basically they (the ones at my practise, at least) are useless. I've found my own research to be more accurate (for the skin condition, he simply went to google, like myself) but they won't take onboard your suggestions.

GJ02 · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:15

Mine is shocking

Went twice in a 3 week period with bad bad stomach pain, he told me its men's health and related to stress of dads death
2 days later rushed to hospital with burst appendix

Ahleckz · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:20

robgmun said:
From experience i had enough with the NHS, I'll be going private very soon as every time we have a problem everyone, and i mean everyone in the NHS behave like a bunch of armatures. I'm sick to death of all the screw-ups and unprofessionalism. The way they have treated my gf over the last few months have been shocking and i will be building a case against them.

And then, if something goes wrong or you have serious problems you'll be sent straight to the first NHS hospital.

I've used private and NHS facilities in the past, I have little faith in my named GP but others at the practice are great and I get appointments with them. Going private is good if you want something done quicker (or for me - if you were after a particular remedy). The NHS are fantastic at what they do, if you have a poor experience from one GP then just go to another.

shoes · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:23

Can't say I enjoy going to see my GP, they want to prescribe a drug for everything. Can't sleep? Have a pill. Feeling depressed after the death of your father? Here, have a pill.

Both times I convinced them I didn't want drugs (I have enough of my own

) and got referred to the local mental health service known as 'emotional wellbeing'. Superb organisation, and much more helpful to me than I could possibly imagine any of these prescribed drugs being.

EDIT: In balance, I see a nurse at the same practice about my asthma and have absolutely no complaints there, they are always very helpful and give great service. Actually, so does the GP, I just wish it was a bit more than an instant prescription of a pill for everything.

spoffle · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:23

robgmun said:
From experience i had enough with the NHS, I'll be going private very soon as every time we have a problem everyone, and i mean everyone in the NHS behave like a bunch of armatures. I'm sick to death of all the screw-ups and unprofessionalism. The way they have treated my gf over the last few months have been shocking and i will be building a case against them.

If only you'd said "I'm stick to death", many laughs would have been had.

rossk26 · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:29

drunkenmaster said:
GP's are inherantly useless, these are doctors that see a very narrow set of symptoms incredibly often and see rare problems very infrequently and they usually can't diagnose them themselves. IE they refer someone for a variety of problems and a specialist diagnoses them. When a doctor works in a GP and sees thousands of patients a year and 98% of them have a cold, then the first thing a GP's mind see's when you say something that bears any similarity to a cold or flu and they automatically think you have nothing really wrong with you.

It's natural, you see something constantly you jump to conclusions. Biggest problem with GP's is sending them to school for 7 years, learning how to take out an appendix, put in chest tubes, diagnose lots of things then stick them in an office for 40 years using NONE of that knowledge, is its a joke. GP's are basically anything from 5 to 40 years out of practice of doing real diagnosing.

The system as it is now is laughably poor, huge resources poured into gp's when they really should be on 30k a year, doing basic assessments with 1/4 of the training and more money for real doctors in hospitals to diagnose more difficult cases.

You do realise the majority of "GPs" also specialise in Hospital's too. So the so called "expertise" isn't lost!!

Most "private" doctors that you see will more than likely also work in a GP surgery or do locum work.

casaubond · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:36

drunkenmaster said:
Or GP's simply all but abolished, train up a bunch of people at 20-30k a year to basically do the **** work GP's do, basic training to basically differentiate between a cold and something more serious and pass everyone on to specialists, then invest all the saved money into real doctors who actually diagnose and treat patients. GP's are by and large not using 90% of the stuff they learn while being doctors. They do not need to know medical level chemistry, how to put in chest tubes, they sit in an office and refer people 95% of the time. 100k a week, 7 years expensive training, its absolutely insane. Doctors are a massive commodity and we throw away 95% of their use by sticking them in GP offices, then pay them a ridiculous wage.

.

It has been tried already. They are called Nurse Practitioners and you see them in walk in centres. Labour actually 4 years ago had the same idea and wanted to change all GP's with NP's. 2 things happened unfortunately that proved this was a bad idea. Firstly the referral to hospital increased exponentially and there were ridiculous waiting time to see a specialist which would not do anything different than a half competent GP would do in community, secondly patients moaned a lot that they actually want to see a doctor. That is why NP’s are only in walk in centres now. (and NP’s salary is >40k per year)

Number_25 · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:37

Never really had a problem with them, what you've got to understand is that just explaining symptoms alone isn't going to be enough.

Just insist on bloods being taken and book a checkup for when they ask you to come down to talk about the results.

powlesY · 10 Jul 2012 at 15:39

Number_25 said:
Never really had a problem with them, what you've got to understand is that just explaining symptoms alone isn't going to be enough.

Just insist on bloods being taken and book a checkup for when they ask you to come down to talk about the results.

I've had a couple of blood tests and they found there's "nothing wrong with me". Of course, i'm just imagining my spit being brown and waking up in the middle of the night with huge chest pains.