What’s up Doc?
With my dear
son the Cannonball suffering from an infected in-growing toenail, yesterday
brought an unscheduled trip to the doctors. A trip to the doctors usually means
a long, mind numbing time sitting in the waiting room as the surgery works on a
first come first served basis known as open surgery (not to be confused with
open heart surgery). The practice
changed to fixed appointments only a few years ago, but it took at least a
fortnight to get the opportunity to see the doctor by which time the patient
had either recovered or died. Consequently, most people turned up at the
surgery on spec anyway demanding to see the doctor so as a result the
appointment system was abandoned.
The surgery
usually opens at 0845 hrs but even if you arrive at that time sharp there is
commonly at least a dozen pensioners who have beat you to it and are already in
the queue to see the receptionist, which ensures that a tediously long wait is
in store.
This time I was
determined to be first in the queue so I triumphantly arrived at the surgery at
0830 hrs. Only to find that the surgery
now opens at 0830 hrs and that the line of pensioners had once more arrived
before me. All was not lost, I thought
to myself, as there were only a half dozen malingers before C’ball and I so
with there being two doctors on duty we will be seen to in no time at all, by
0900 hrs at the latest.
C’Ball and I
settled down to read our respective books to fill the anticipated short
wait. I had one eye on my book and one
on the patients going in and out of the surgery to work out when we would be
called. 0900 hrs came and went, as did
0930 hrs. By then a great number of
patients had entered the waiting room and it was harder to decipher who was
before us in the pecking order and who was not.
Everything now
seemed a terrible jumble. There was only
six people to see the doctor before us, but eleven had saw the doctor and left,
none of which came in after us and there were still patients waiting that had
come in before us. Things were getting
so confusing that I lost the power to concentrate on my book and C’ball decided
he had had enough of reading at the same time and abandoned his book, deciding
instead to restlessly fidget.
I am certainly
no mathematician but by this stage two doctors has seen eleven patients in one
hour and fifteen minutes, meaning each patient on average had spent over 13
minutes with the doctor. And this is an
average, meaning some patients had taken considerably more time. In all the visits that I have had to the
doctors over the years, being very businesslike I cannot recall being in the
surgery with the doctor for over five minutes once I had eventually been
called. But some people do not know the
meaning of the word concise and others are relentless chatterboxes who just
like to talk for the sake of it, having flagrant disregard for the suffering
masses in the waiting room.
By 0945 hrs
C’ball and I had gone way past the end of our tethers and even though I wasn’t
ill when I went into the surgery I started to feel utterly dreadful, despite
the fact that I had not had a drink for two days. When the doctor called the next patient her
voice became increasingly vague and I began to wonder if our names had been
called but I had missed it.
It is normally
at this point that you need the toilet but are fearful that you will miss your
call if you go, so you cross your legs and start to read the posters on the
wall to take your mind off the matter.
And what a depressing occupation that is. Most people walk in to the surgery in a
cheerless state given that they are ill or have an injury of some description
and are in need of a bit of merriment to lighten the mood. But the posters on the wall serve as a
reminder of our mortality and makes one feel even gloomier than before. To make things worse there is now a
television in the corner piping in medical based information directly into the
waiting room in invasive fashion, so there is no escape from contemplating such
horrors as the onset of dementia.
At long last,
when we thought we had entered the land that time forgot, we were called by the
doctor and she turned out to have arms that were hairier than those of Talk
Sport’s Richard Keys. True to form we
were out of the surgery, prescription in hand, within a matter of minutes which
made me wonder why most of the other patients took so much time.
GPs are trouble
shooters so generally they can get you out of the surgery expediently by either
giving you a prescription, telling you that your ailment is not worth worrying
about (i.e. p*ss of you malingerer) or referring you to a specialist. Even if the problem is a little sticky, in my
experience the doctor gives you short shrift.
When I have sought help with depression from the GPs they have been so
dismissive that I have left thinking that they must have worse problems than
me.
The one thing
that doctors do not like above all is when the patient dabbles in self
diagnoses. In his 20’s my younger
brother Roger told the GP that he thought he had a double hernia but the doc
dismissed this theory as he said Rog was too young to have that complaint. Roger then was referred to various
specialists and medicos before they finally diagnosed the problem. A double hernia or double trouble, more
like.
I hanker for
the days of dear old Doctor Robinson, with his half moon glasses and tweed
jacket and no-nonsense approach. Patients were in and out like a revolving door
under Robinson. My mother took my
verruca riddled older Brother, the Albino, to see Robinson to sort out his
feet. Robinson didn’t mess around with
creams or treatments he simply cut the unwelcome verrucas off with his scalpel. This not only cured the problem in double
quick time but additionally put me off going to the doctors at all until after
Robinson finally retired.
The Antipodean
doctor, who worked at the practice not too long ago but who’s name escapes me,
was a far cry from the efficient Robinson.
Undertaking a blood test the Aussie doctor took a blood sample from me,
but as I was suffering from low blood pressure as part of my illness I felt
very faint. The doctor reacted to this
with nervous laughter, which did not fill me with confidence. He didn’t seem to know what on earth to do so
I suggested he find me a biscuit to chomp on, which duly did the trick and I
perked up a bit.
But it was it
was the lady doctor Nettles who really takes the biscuit. Many years ago I
developed an unsightly rash in the groin area, which was giving me more than a
little concern. I was ushered in to see
the rookie doctor Nettles and I explained that I had a rash, but she didn’t ask
on what part of the body the rash had appeared, she simply asked to see it –
she must have expected me to roll up my sleeve as it was to her great horror
that I dropped my trousers and underwear to reveal the rash. I don’t think she had seen one before. Not wanting to get her hands dirty, to
inspect the rash further she moved my testicles to one side with a pencil,
which fortunately for me was a little blunt.
To my great relief she diagnosed a heat rash. Which is ironic, given that through
embarrassment Nettles was having a hot flush.
But it was an
emergency doctor in West Bromwich who won the
day for medical incompetence. A few
years ago on a Saturday I could withstand the earache I was suffering no longer
so visited the our of hours doctor who commented, after looking down my throat,
that my tonsils were infected, to which I replied, “I don’t think so doc, I had
them removed in 1978!”
© Dominic
Horton, 18th March, 2013.
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