Читать книгу The Complete Confessions of a GP - Benjamin Daniels - Страница 34

Please don’t bring a list of problems when you see your GP. I understand that you might not get to the surgery very often. Perhaps you have to sweat blood to get an appointment. Maybe you had to plead with your boss for the morning off and then beg our receptionist to squeeze you in. In fact, it is probably so difficult for you to get an appointment with your doctor, you’ve saved up all your niggling health queries that have been building up for the last few months and thought it would be better to get them all sorted out in one visit. Please don’t!

We have ten minutes per appointment. That isn’t very long, but we GPs pride ourselves in dealing with even quite complex problems during that short period of time. We have to get you in from the waiting room, say hello, listen to your concerns, take a history, examine you, discuss options, formulate a plan, write up your notes and complete any necessary prescriptions or referrals … all in just ten minutes! It’s amazing that we ever run to time. However, if you have saved up four problems to sort out, then that leaves just 2.5 minutes per problem. That isn’t very long and we’ll either spend 40 minutes with you and annoy the rest of the morning’s patients by running very late, or we’ll only half-heartedly deal with each problem and probably miss something important. This is clearly bad for your health and our indemnity insurance premiums.

If you do have a list of several problems, please warn us from the start and tell us what they all are. I’ve frequently had patients tell me that they are here to talk about their athlete’s foot and then after a leisurely ten minutes casually mention their chest pains, dizzy spells and depression on the way out of the door. If you have got several problems you want addressing, try booking a double appointment or decide what problem needs to be dealt with that day and book in another time for the others. Moan over. Ta.