Health Professionals - "The Good, The Bad, and The...!!!!"

My brother used to work as a pharmaceuticals rep, and had quite an astonishingly number of stories of gps and the like who suffer from alcohol abuse. Sounds like thi one was well away.

Yes, think we have all experienced this range of treatment. Medical professionals must have a hard job dealing with this sort of thing all their whole working life, and you must have to be someone special to do it, but I am certain that the behaviour of the staff influences the well-being of the patients - and if we get a bad 'un, we need to vote by referring ourselves elsewhere. xxx Penny

Good - the surgeon. Bomb proof, brisk but informative. I don't know what he is like with everyone else, but I felt confident in his company. On one occasion I was totally unconscious, but he went ahead and did the op without any mistakes, and I recovered really quickly. His Nurse Consultant - always around, answers questions, puts everything in proportion.

Bad - the night doctor who was as horizontalist as a clinician can be. Treated me like an idiot. He really must have been tired. It was 2 am, and I expect he had been on shift for hours and hours and was really busy too. I have forgiven him.

Indifferent - Nurses who stand in doorways and gossip with the doctor you are waiting to see. Actually, I don't like to see them having too good a time when they are ignoring the patients.
Anyone who made me wait a minute longer in Chemo than I had to. Obviously when one man had an emergency it was different, but often they would mess about with the hot pads in their hands, and not bring them over so they could start it all off. I always felt really sick in the Chemo unit.

I always found the little things worse than the big things. I could handle scans etc and not worry at all about the results, but an unneccessary delay (bad organisation) would have me really fuming (and once or twice crying).

I have decided that August is the crappest time to have cancer. I actually have no horror stories of staff, all the ones i have met so far have been good to great BUT if i hear the phrase "I'm ever so sorry but they're on holiday" once more i shall scream!

I waited over THREE HOURS for the results of my WLE last week, the doc was great when i eventually saw him but snowed under cos the main surgeon was on holiday and he was struggling to cover him.(hence the 3 hour wait)

Of course thats the same surgeon who is meant to do my op, the surgeon whos on holiday for 3 and a half weeks and who is the only one who does recon...

My brilliant BC nurse who assured me there would be someone on the other end of the phone any day is also on holiday so mon to thurs there is .....no one to see!

This seemed fine until yesterday my WLE wound split and is clearly infected, no BC nurses could see me cos they were snowed under because 2 are on holiday and the GP couldnt see me because......you guessed it shes on holiday.

I said i didnt care who i saw but i REALLY needed to see a doc, any of the 12 docs at my surgery in fact. but no free apppnts, they're snowed under because 3 docs are on holiday!!

AAAAHHHH do they think that our bodies will behave themselves for the month of august??

The worst thing is that i cant moan as they all deserve holidays like the rest of us......

(although i had to cancel mine due to surgery....no of course i'm not bitter.....)

I had an infection in my main scar, not in August, but at a time when I thought I was free and clear. I had my stitches out on the Monday, and on the Wednesday, it started pouring. I went back to my GP, and the emergency doctor saw me and the nurses patched me up and sorted out dressings and antibiotics.

They were short of staff too, and there are only 6 doctors and 4 Practice nurses. I even rang NHS direct, and they were very helpful. We have a walk in centre, but I still don't know where that is. You can find it on NHS Direct website.

My doctor sees me quite promptly to appointment time, but the nurses are so late. I think they need longer appointment times. The vampires also used to take a long time, until I now go to the Haematology department of the hospital and they do it in about 10 minutes, even if there is only one vampire on duty. I have called them that to their faces, and they either laugh or just accept it as perfectly normal.

There should be a PALS office you can complain to if there is a problem with your own treatment, but if it is something they need to reorganise, you can go to the LINks group. They monitor systems, that used to be just Health, but now or at least soon, they will be dealing with Social Services delivery. They then liaise with PCT or hospital management to get changes brought in. Like waiting times for hospital transport, or infection prevention and control.

If the PALS let you down, go to the LINks.

I had an infection in my main scar, not in August, but at a time when I thought I was free and clear. I had my stitches out on the Monday, and on the Wednesday, it started pouring. I went back to my GP, and the emergency doctor saw me and the nurses patched me up and sorted out dressings and antibiotics.

They were short of staff too, and there are only 6 doctors and 4 Practice nurses. I even rang NHS direct, and they were very helpful. We have a walk in centre, but I still don't know where that is. You can find it on NHS Direct website.

My doctor sees me quite promptly to appointment time, but the nurses are so late. I think they need longer appointment times. The vampires also used to take a long time, until I now go to the Haematology department of the hospital and they do it in about 10 minutes, even if there is only one vampire on duty. I have called them that to their faces, and they either laugh or just accept it as perfectly normal.

There should be a PALS office you can complain to if there is a problem with your own treatment, but if it is something they need to reorganise, you can go to the LINks group. They monitor systems, that used to be just Health, but now or at least soon, they will be dealing with Social Services delivery. They then liaise with PCT or hospital management to get changes brought in. Like waiting times for hospital transport, or infection prevention and control.

If the PALS let you down, go to the LINks.

Hi Penny

I honestly don't think this vampire was drunk, just useless! Perhaps I should have suspected something when I first saw him - his 'white' coat looked like the 'before' garment in a washing powder commercial... distinctly grey. As he poked and prodded me he kept muttering (in barely discernible English) "In all my years of experience, this has never happened to me before". Now this may have been a load of old toffee because he behaved like he had never done a blood sample before. As I said before, he kept dropping things: cotton wool, needles, the tourniquet. At one point he retrieved the tourniquet from the floor, ran it under the tap then threw it in the bin. He then looked around for something before saying, "I can't find my tourniquet". When I told him it was in the bin he didn't believe me! The whole thing was surreal!

Regards
KateG

Hi Louise79,

What a croc! You poor thing. Sometimes you just want to stand in the middle of reception and have a tantrum like a two-year-old, but we are all too polite and scared of making fools of ourselves! Let's hope September brings all the medics back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to work miracles on you.

All the best
KateG

I lost my mum six months ago to pancreatic cancer, she was a nurse and a very dedicated one. She taught me what nursing is about, compassion, empathy, patience, communication (listening mainly) and advocating patient needs. When I went through what I did with my mum and the rest of the family it made me understand how important these qualities are. It also made me realise how vulnerable it is to be a patient in a hospital and how important it is for health carers to provide holistic care(caring for body and mind). I know what it is like to recieve bad/life changing news, what it is like to have what seems like a never ending worry, losing someone so important, having to adjust to major events. I also have my own disliking to a certain cancer nurse who I feel acted totally unprofessionally towards my mum eg. telling my mum she had cancer, when in fact this wasnt known yet. I will be qualifying as a nurse in Sept and I hope that from everything I have learnt and experienced, I will be able to use effectively. I would like to be known as the nurse that made a difference in a positive way and not the other way round.

Hi Marie,

It sounds like you will make a brilliant nurse! I think having such hard knocks during your short life will have made you more tolerant and understanding.

Not that I wish such pain on all young nurses but perhaps some of the training of new nurses could be directed less toward the scientific aspects of medicine and more toward how to deal with the patient as a vulnerable human being. Some nurses have a natural ability - a caring, nurturing personality, but I'm sure others look on patients as 'broken things' needed to be repaired.

My sister trained as a nurse in the 1950's. Beyond giving the odd injection most of her training revolved around physical patient care: washing, feeding and making the patient comfortable. It would appear nurses now are scientific technicians and, whilst more lives are undoubtedly saved, perhaps the quality of care has suffered.

I wish you every success.

KateG

Hi, I read with interest the posts on this forum. I am a nurse & have been for 2 years...prior to this I was a paramedic. Seeing life as a patient has been an eye opening experience! I have been cared for by nurses who have not even passed me the time of day...made worse when they discovered I was a nurse! I kept "stum" about being a nurse to prevent this from re happenng & found that when they finally discovered I was a nurse were even worse! One hospital was exceptional & cared for me excellently..I am not saying every nurse was the same but a good few..I initially thought I was being sensitive but my family & colleagues also commented. It was very hard for me to come to terms with this & to try not to get involved & interfere with other patient care..it was exhausting looking out for some of the elderly whilst I was a patient. I had to bite my tongue! It is a very lonely experience being in hospital & at such vulnerable times in our lives. We are taught about holistic care etc but I think it has to come from within..you either have these skills or you don't. Communication is a very important skill..both verbal & non verbal..as is empathy not sympathy..I for one value them all..good luck to you all.
Julie

Just joined the forum and it is lovely to know that I am not alone. My surgeon was a delight - told me everything and I felt very safe in his hands - but I changed my Oncologist as soon as I had finished radiotherapy (was told by doctor friend believe me I know what he's like but if it were my wife having treatment I would choose him) but it was lovely changing to a really super man!

Now there are the delights, the indifferent and the arrogants - but I just ignore the latters and smile sweetly at the middle ones - and insist on asking them questions so they have to stop tapping on computers and look at me!

Thanks for a very good laugh

My husband add to go through a high grade chemo (just finished) and I will print all the posts and make him read it. After 12 weeks mostly in hopital he felt exactly that : he can cope with the pain of the intrathecals, the headache, the tiredness, the mouth sore but bad organisation he simply cannot. All the treatments were provided to a very high level of standard but sometimes "small" annoyances becomes quite difficult to bear.

The good : The nurse whom, when asked about the dosage a particular chemo, immediatly came back with the file and recalculate it with my husband (we found out that we have been given the wrong information sheet, the one for patient over 65 years old, that is why it did not match). All that peacefully and with a smile.

The nurse whom manage to gave 5 different chemo/saline bags across the afternoon without letting the dreadfull "ding ding dong" going on for more than 5 mn. Not only he succeeded to do it for us but for all the patients of the Ward that afternoon.Indeed, realising something was strange (the lack of the ding dong background) I became very attentive and listen very carefully. he looked harrassed and stressed and made no chit chat, but, boy, he was good !

the Bad : (or should I say the "not very bright"). The young doctor that was chatting with us about the removal of the hickman line from my husband due to infection. She was there whilst another doctor had been doing the procedure. This was a difficult procedure, went to long and the aneasthetic wore off and it become extremely painful. When we casualy mentioned to her the removal of the line as one of the most unpleasant experience so far she blurted out "Oh yes, I remember,... poor Tom !!"

My husband is not called Tom. Tom was the name of the doctor who carried out the procedure.

We have forgiven her, she was young and of course she did not identify to the patient. When you are that age, even a doctor, you do not really believe that you will ever be a patient. However, and perhaps rather unfairly, we have now baptise the other doctor "poor Tom"......

The nurses whom constantly forget that my husband takes his temperature himself (he has sensitive hears). This usually results into mini wrestling episodes between my husband and the nurse that are rather funny to watch.

The ugly : the nurse that let the chemo dispensing machine rang for 40mn, comes (under my pressant request), put the ringing on hold for 5mn and disappeared for another 35mn and than come back and yes...did it again!
We were just waiting for my husband to get unhooked from the chemo dispensing machine - there was no more treatment that day - and were hoping to have a quick drive to the sea as we expected this would be the last time my husband could actually walk around for a while.
At the third time my husband had an argument of 15mn whith the nurse whom was explaining that she was too busy to unhook him. Pointing out that the "unhooking" would have taken only 10mn we finally won the day and he got unhooked !

OK that was a one off, but really unpleasant.

The very ugly :
Yes, I mean hospital food.
We are not talking about the quality of the food (which is bad but we can understand budget constraints). Just the fact that not one day went by without at least one of the order being wrong and the soup or desert having spilled out on the tray because the lids where not put down properly by the kitchen staff. When you are sick with chemo, that certainly remove any desire to eat whatsoever.

Just a great occasion to let a little bit of the steam goes.

except that the nurse recognised him - but you do hear of these instances were weirdos dress up and claim qualifications they don't possess. I think you were very brave - I would definitely have screamed or run out the door before the end! Maybe he'd been on call for 72 hours - whatever, something should be done about this - surreal is right. xxx Penny

Everyone has an off day. The vampire with the total incompetence, if not drunk may well have had a bad day. Perhaps he found his wife in flagrante delicto, or one of his relatives had just been diagnosed with Cancer, or maybe his mother had just died. It can foul up your competence especially the last, though you feel normal, you aren't. It's no compensation to the patient of course.

The incident with the obstreperous nurse, needs attention. A complaint should be made. You would obviously prefer her to be more patient friendly, and be properly trained in procedures.

I will bring up organisation at out next Patient involvement meeting, because it applies right across hospital treatment.

It is often a good idea to ask when your consultant is going on holiday. I have grown accustomed to my GP being on holiday in August, but he took the last two weeks this year instead of the first two. I would have made an appointment then if I had known.

I was quite impressed by my oncology team. I was quite happy to see the Registrar, or even someone junior to that. If I saw a junior, I knew it would be routine stuff. They always had a meeting before the first appointment to divvy up the patients between them. The consultant took the first and the last ones, and one or two in between. They all knew their stuff, but one was almost incomprehensible because of her accent. One houseman was tall, dark, very handsome and really nice with it. Made one suspect heart complications. (norty girl!!)

Lack of organisation is almost unforgiveable, coupled with lack of effective communication.

I was very lucky with the nursing. My hospital is the Army hospital as well, and we had army nurses occasionally, learning how to nurse other things than just injury. They were really good, keen as mustard, and happy to explain anything. They would tell stories about Afghanistan when they weren't too busy.
Ruth

Hi everybody,

Thank you all for your contributions to this forum. To comment on your comments: Yes, health professionals can have their problems too and I can sympathize. Nurses overworked? Certainly, but why aren't there more of them? I have seen health care delivered by both the NHS and the private sector and I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that the NHS is overdue for a makeover. As the old saying goes...' Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians'.

Don't get me wrong, the principles behind the NHS are worthy and the critical care they deliver can be excellent but the devil is in the detail. For example: my mother-in-law, aged 86 had pneumonia and was rushed into hospital where almost the first thing they did was lose her two hearing aids. I told all the staff they needed to look at her when they spoke because she was capable of lip-reading. I asked them to put that information on the front of her notes. No-one bothered. Sick and confused, she didn't know what was happening to her and was very distressed. We rapidly replaced the hearing aids only to be told by staff that they didn't really like the patients having them in because they got in the way of the thermometer and "old ladies get confused and lose them". Argh! We won that battle but imagine what would have happened if she hadn't had a family to defend her?

Sorry, I'm rambling! Some more GOOD - my consultant - charming bedside manner, although I always got a bit worried when he patted my hand gently before delivering bad news! Another GOOD - The registrar - all of 12 years old, but jumped in, all guns blazing, when I had a crisis. (Didn't have any dishy juniors!) Another GOOD - believe it or not - the hospital food! We had a choice of portion size and even the smallest was more than I could eat. (Perhaps it's because I'm a rotten cook?)

Keep posting!
KateG

First, I'd like to say that when it comes to 'Good' the nursing staff in Intensive Care where my husband ended up post-op were not 'good' - they were FANTASTIC. They made a terrifyingly scary time (I hadn't expected him to end up in ITU at midnight!) into something incredibly reassuring and comforting. They were all absolutely marvellous that night, letting me sit with him (falling asleep on to him just about!) and clinging on to his lower arm as that was about the only bit of him that didn't have tubes coming out or going in! They talked me through all the readouts and what was happening, and why, and what would be happening next and what was going on, etc etc. They really were absolutely wonderful, and I can't praise or thank them enough. Wonderful, wonderful people!

Second - well, I don't know what word to use. Not a horrible one, I know, because that would just not be fair. BUT, what word applies to a GP that simply didn't spot someone was getting cancer?? I think, in the end, I'd use something like 'badly trained' - but not in an individual way, in a completely generic way. ie, In the sense that I really can't see that GPs are 'trained' to 'think cancer' when it comes to their patients. They really only seem to be trained to think 'highly unlikely' - as if, extraordinarily, all the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people in the UK diagnosed with cancer were all 'highly unlikely' to have been developing it while they were registered with GPs.....

It just never seems to dawn on a GP that 'hey, people are DX with cancer EVERY DAY, EVERY HOUR, EVERY MINUTE -and there is NO reason why that shouldn't happen to one of my patients'.

Yet it seems they will spend months - years even - checking for all sorts of other things, but NEVER cancer.....

And if, good heavens, a patient actually ASKS 'Could it be cancer?' or 'How can I be confident I'm not getting cancer?' their sole response is to say 'oh no, very unlikely, don't worry your little head about it' and focus all their efforts on reassuring you.....

Then, worse, the medical profession starts writing articles about the 'worried well' and what a total pain they are.....

As I say, it's utterly unfair to castigate a GP for not spotting that a patient they are seeing regularly is developing advanced cancer in front of their very eyes, but I do think it is absoutely CRIMINAL for the medical profession not to take cancer seriously enough to prevent incidental DX and late DX being the scandal that it is.

So, whilst I don't think an individual GP is 'bad', I can't exempt the medical profession as a whole from that condemnation. While cancer mortality stats are what they are (around half of cancer patients don't last five years....)(says the Sunday Times), how can one possibly exonerate the medical profession of the charge of criminal negligence....??

I don't know what causes this negligence - is it because medicine is focussed only on 'reacting' rather than 'preventing'? Is it because docs see so many dying people and are so used to death that they simply don't see it as a big deal? Is it because they are taught that 'no one lives for ever and some die before their time and that's just that'? Is it, perhaps, because they themselves are scared of cancer?

Or why? WHAT IS the rational explanation for GPs not 'thinking cancer'? It simply seems inexplicable to me. Beyond reason.

Julie2

Hi Julie,

Your remarks about the staff in Intensive Care rang a big bell! Praise be I haven't been there, but both my mother-in-law and father-in-law were patients in Intensive Care on separate occasions. INTENSIVE wasn't the word AMAZING might be better - at any one time there would be three nurses working on them, checking, treating, caring... absolutely wonderful.

Your other remarks about GPS not 'thinking' cancer... I do wonder if this may now be a budget decision? Do 'fund-holding' practices have to pay when they refer patients to hospital? I really don't know. This is not a flippant question; I really don't know how budgets are handled.

The era when patients were 'ignorant little peasants' has passed and we now are more knowledgeable and willing to question a diagnosis (or non-diagnosis!). However, it is still difficult for us to stand up and DEMAND action. What a balancing act! In the States if you complain of say, 'toe-ache' they'd whip you in for a full body scan, x-rays, and empty your left arm of enough blood to do every test in the book. Perhaps here they are more cautious.

I self-reported to my GP who immediately referred me to a specialist who found nothing wrong exactly one year before a routine mammogram confirmed my suspicions. Who was right? Seems life is one big game of Russian Roulette!

All my best wishes

KateG

was the intensive Care Unit at? Seems we could "name and praise" as then at least they could have some public thanks, and also anyone else going there will feel reassured (ie the opposite of my reason for NOT "naming and shaming"). Glad to hear that this potentially terrifying time was so wonderfully dealt with for you and your husband.

Yes, agree about the GPs. When I told mine I had been misdiagnosed at the hospital, and it had in fact already spread to my para-aortic and supra clavicular fossa lymph nodes, he said, "Have you got ovarian cancer?" - looks at notes - "Oh no, cervical. Are you sure? I didn't know it could spread there." I then trotted back to my oncologist (as they had admitted one mistake) and said, "Are you sure? My GP..." The oncologist just laughed.

xxx Penny

And others too. There is so much complexity in medicine, that we have to be on our toes. I'm very pleased with my GP Whenever I have reported anything, he never hesitates to refer me. He does ask if I will go for the appointment when it comes, and waits until I am ready.

Penny, fancy your oncologist just laughing when you tried to quote your GP! A GP with a close interest in cancer could go into General Practice because he wants to be at the sharp end, identifying early stages. Isn't that what we want.

I have thought from time to time that I have a lump in my breast, and the GP, 3 different ones have all taken it seriously. My GP took my low haemoglobin seriously as well.

A lot of consultants used to think they were God. They used to be treated that way, but a lot of water has gone under the bridge and most of the newer consultants have professionalised themselves. There are still some small gods about though. How to identify them? If they take everything you say seriously, and examine it and explain in clinical terms why you are worrying unneccessarily, but still send you for a scan, or blood test, just in case, should be safe enough. Any consultant who laughs off without thinking anything from the floor, is bound to be suspect. As is a surgeon disregarding a physician, or vice versa.

Maybe we all need to ask our doctors to send us for tests if we seriously suspect something is wrong.

Of course, persuading our menfolk to see a doctor in the first place is a nightmare.

I know all about that one, Ruthless! It took a good 6-8 weeks of nagging to get my husband to the doctor.As he'd smoked for nearly 50 years I KNEW that his increasingly hoarse voice was bad news. Still at least I got him there & the GP didn't hang about & he was referred under the 2 week rule. I'm just thankful that if he had to get a smoking related cancer it was his larynx & not his lungs. Oh, and he has stopped smoking, which I realise was not an easy thing to do.
Anyway our GP rates among 'The Good' in my book.

Caz