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Putting your GP on trial

Would you put your GP on trial?

  • Total voters
    38
I complained about my son's GP to the practice manager following her diagnosis of an ear infection less than 24 hours before he was admitted to ICU in DKA. He was 10 months old and spent a further 4 weeks in hospital.
He had been taken to the doctors 4 times in 10 days, his GP was well aware of this but still fobbed us off and did not carry out a full examination. Following my complaint I received a letter from the GP telling me that infections could play havoc with diabetic's blood sugar levels, lead to DKA and diagnosis of diabetes. I was beyond angry at her obvious ignorance of the condition she didn't seem to grasp that it was undiagnosed diabetes that had led to DKA.
I have now made a complaint to the GMC and their fitness to practice team are investigating the GP.
 
Sid Bonkers said:
Is this thread a joke?

Surely anyone who thinks their doctor should be "put on trial" needs to change doctors asap. And if they are serious they need to report him/her to the GMC.
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Hi this is not a joke i don't believe ...but perhaps a bit of a follow up after a discussion on the radio , it is a topical discussion in the media and the word of health ..regarding GP,s owning up,to their mistakes ....
 
I do believe that they should answer for their mistakes, if they didn't they won't learn. I have had type 1 diabetes for 21 years, I am now 31 years old, so I was young when I was first diagnosed. When I was 25 I got kidney disease, but because my vitals had not changed dramatically to a dangerous level, my specialists did not feel the need to inform me or explain to me the risks involved with kidney disease, 3 years later when I was 28, I was starting university I was getting married and working all the hour's I could, so I was a little more stressed than I ever would be. This is when the unknown(to me) kidney disease proved to be a huge problem, I started to lose my sight. If my diabetic doctor had been good enough to tell me about the disease and kept me informed with what was happening in my care I could have been started on preventative medications and I would have been able to understand what was happening. I lost my job, my drivers license and my university degree. My whole life basically, because she did not include me in my care or take the time to explain what was happening throughout my care. Will I hold my doctor accountable? Yes, a complete lack of information about my own care cost me my sight and life as I knew it. A few minutes to give an explanation and talk about preventive measures would have saved a lot of heartache and worry.
 
My own Dr Gibbons is great , he is a diabetic Dr, Moss Street sergery you ring after 08:30 you are seen by a Dr that Day.
The diabetic Dr I was sent to see DVLA over a 100 miles away was incompedent and he DID NOT KNOW how to operate my meter and filled in the form incorecly as a result I lost my HGV, This was reported to DVLA and the medical council in may DVLA said you can reaply for your licenceat any time and DID NOT coment on the Dr abilerty ? the medical council has of yet replied so YES they shoud be held responsable BUT WHO TO
 
That is truly awful! Can nothing be done?!
 
I think like any profession, there are good, bad and indifferent. Sometimes they are overworked with impossible quotas and like anyone working under those conditions, they make mistakes. They should be accountable when they get it wrong, like all professions. Because an error on their part can ruin someone's life or cost a life!
 
AlexMBrennan said:
That poll question is beyond stupid unless you are suggesting that EVERY patient-GP interaction EVER amounts to malpractice and that every doctor ever has to be put on trial.
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Or unless, you, you know, use your common sense and the ordinary meaning of words to understand that it can only be referring to cases where damage has been suffered...
 
Doctors have a duty of care to their patients and if they fail in that duty they need to be held accountable. We do not expect them to be perfect but we do and should expect them to be competent.

If you place your trust in someone in a professional context and they abuse that trust by failing to follow their duty of care towards you I would say that not only ought they to suffer the consequences but you ought to pursue them.

Best

Dillinger
 
To me the main problem is being able to draw that fine line between a mistake - lets face it they are human and genuine mistakes will be made - and the constant ignoring, or denying, that there is a problem that needs treating, right up to the out and out negligence.

I had a 'bad' smear test many, many moons ago, never knew any thing about it, until years later when I had severe inflammation and the consultant asked me why nothing had been done about it for the last 4 years as I could easily have been dead well within that time. My doctor had said NOTHING in all that time.

I'm sure that many of us have come up against doctors that are basically in the wrong job, probably only became doctors because their fathers were doctors before them etc. etc. there are also those that learned the trade via the manual they read on the boat. Luckily there are some excellent ones out there too, it just finding one that is prepared to listen, as the OP said, we often have a pretty good idea of what is actually going wrong with our bodies. Unfortunately most doctors are not prepared to listen.
 
I live in Canada and I am planning on making a formal complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in my province about my so-called 'doctor'. I went to see him about strange feelings in my feet - mostly just loss of feeling in my toes and the bottom of my feet - nothing too spectacular. Had some blood tests. He said they were normal, except I had 'pre-diabetes' (I figured out later that this test showed my A1C was, in fact, in the diabetic range). He then ran a test B12. That was fine. Told me that what was happening to my feet had no known cause and not to worry about it. He did not say anything about the high blood sugar. So I went on my merry way not worrying about it. Except over the next four months, my feet were getting worse - more loss of feeling, pins and needles, pain that made it difficult to walk. He ran blood tests again and said I was diabetic and put me on metformin. He did not give me any advice regarding diet or exercise or any discussion of blood sugar, refer me to a dietician, give me prescription for a blood glucose meter - nothing. He still said the foot problems had no known cause. He did not mention that the high blood sugar could have caused it. Three months later, while on metformin and having lost a bit of weight, I had more blood tests and saw him to talk about the results. He now said I was 'pre-diabetic'. I tried to discuss with him whether my foot problems were related to the diabetes. He would have none of it. I asked him to refer me to a specialist. He refused and told me to get a new doctor. I never went back. I called the diabetic centre in my city and told them my doctor wouldn't give me a referral and they said to try a walk-in clinic. I did, and brow-beat the doctor into giving me a referral. I then went to a pharmacist (at random) and she was kind enough to write a prescription for a blood glucose meter and showed me how to use it. I very quickly figured out that carbs were spiking my blood sugar. I changed to a low carb diet and almost all the pain in my feet went away, but I still get pins and needles feeling quite often and of course the numbness hasn't gone away, but it hasn't gotten worse since the start of the low carb diet. I really think that if the doctor had identified the high blood sugar the first time I saw him that my foot problems would have stabilized at the point of just some numbness instead of getting worse, and who knows what other damage was done to me by the high blood sugar. I feel stupid for having trusted this doctor until it was too late. My formal complaint will not make a difference for me, but hopefully other people won't be mistreated by this clown. The only good thing is that this episode has forced me to study type 2 diabetes quite intensely and I now think I have it under control. I have a new doctor, but she does not seem to know much about type 2 diabetes either - or at least not as much as I do. I tried to discuss with her my blood glucose levels and other lab test results and she got angry and asked why I was so obsessed with my blood glucose. It's very frustrating. Just to clarify, there is only a public health system in Canada. You can't get a private doctor here - it is illegal.
 
Thats one of my big hates - why wont doctors discuss with you your illness and symptoms and explain stuff. OK, some people don't want to know, but there are many many people that do want to know and want to understand. Maybe they are just scared that you might know more than them ! ! my current doctor is like that, and the one previous, like talking to a brick wall - absolutely no response or willingness to engage etc.
 
You make very valid points GPs are NOT specialists - some are not good with Diabetes at all - most are not aware of the latest treatments and won't use the best products to save money
 
The main problem I encountered when complaining about the gp who mistook gangrene for a bruise was the neat little trick the NHS has which was a requirement for the complainant to prove a negative -I.e. that the situation that developed and which nearly lost me my leg wouldn't have happened anyway even if the GP hadn't ****** up - catch 22 or what?
 

That's right; and that is what the law of negligence has been trying to do for a long time; it says in England and Wales that a person has acted negligently if they have departed from the conduct expected of a reasonably prudent person acting under similar circumstances.

I heard a good description of negligence by a QC who essentially said negligent behaviour is the type that makes you wince when you hear about it. That doesn't have the weight of law but I thought it was a good way of describing it.

The other thing is that if mistakes are not answered for and sloppy behaviour is not held up as such then there can be no improvements in the system; mistakes are fine, pretending they didn't happen is not. That requires accountability. The reason so few planes actually fall out of the skies is that the aeronautical industry spends a lot of time figuring out how to expose mistakes and correct them; there is none of this 'captain knows best' ideology there.

Best

Dillinger
 

You can design, engineer, inspect and test a plane before it ever leaves the ground and before it ever leaves the ground full of passengers. Each individual component of the plane will have been inspected and tested within an inch of its life before assembly.

If you want GP's to see their first patient signed off, certified and approved to aerospace standards then prepare yourself for a raft of octogenarian doctors. How can you ever learn all there is to know about the human body? You can't. A GP is trained to diagnose potential issues and deal with them by referral or medication. Medication generally being a broad brush antibiotic of some description. They will learn as the years go by but they are also prone to the same every day condition that we all have. We are human. Having a medical degree does also not guarantee having a personality or any social skills so you accept what you get.
 
But that's the point isn't it @Scardoc - GP's are generalists and human beings so mistakes will be made, but they need to manage how those mistakes are dealt with; my point about the aeronautical industry was not so much the mechanics of building a plane or flying but the process of dealing with mistakes.

Most of us are here because the 'doctor knows best' gumph about diabetes is so self-evidently wrong that we can see through it and take control of our own treatment, look to the news and the family of young Ashya; surely another example of doctors knowing best and completely ignoring the parents and their questions?

The structure of the NHS seems to be to be such that your opinion is worthless (and god forbid an idiot patient to have an opinion) until you get to a certain level whether a consultant or other elevated position and then your opinion becomes the Word Of God and must not be challenged.

That is not how things work in the real world; and the NHS should try to spend more time there...

Dillinger
 
'Doctor knows best' happened to my friend. She had just had a baby by C-section. Literally days later she was complaining of pains in her leg, her GP came out, and just said it was because she wasn't moving about...duh with a new baby. She was rushed to hospital later the same day by her partner. She had a blood clot in her leg that went to her lungs, she died later that evening, leaving a 2 week old baby and her partner. At the inquest they blamed everyone but themselves.
 
I find the medical profession falls short on relaying the "science" to a patient or relatives, removing the ability to make an informed decision..
In the case of my dad. He had a degenerative painless condition to which they knew he was dying... In fact their experience expected this outcome within a matter of days.. Despite a big red DNR on the notes they sidestepped & fobbed off my questioning in the hope his demise slipped away unnoticed in a sterile unfamiliar side room on a ward!
After Googling an answer I gave him the dignity he wanted at home.

After giving him time to himself I called em up to come round & do the "paperwork"..
That's when they give me the Google science with their condolences...

Unfortunately, this is not my first experience with this scenario...
They seriously need to get their act together on this score. Or at least have "trained personnel" who can..
 


Sadly, your story is more common that is known. The fact is that the UK record of diagnosing serious life threatening illnesses is much lower than any other Western countries, where people are diagnosed much too late. Few escape this culling. I believe its a political strategy that costs many lives.

In brief, I am still waiting to be seen by an autonomic neurologist, suffered POTS now for over fifteen years, still waiting to be diagnosed with diabetes. They symptoms are so severe, that I am in a state of collpase, have to eat beans every two hours to keep alive, literally, with typical diabetes symptoms, (seeing an endo tomorrow morning), this has now worsened my heart failure, which shows a high level of BNP with a poor prognosis. I could go on and on with a list of illnesses, still waiting to be diagnosed.

Important factor to take note, is that for many diseases and illnesses, the UK has a different reference range depriving patients of full diagnosis. I have also noted that for the last few years, doctors no longer write the full diagnosis or medical history of patients, but choose instead to write "possible" or a diagnosis with a question mark.

Diagnosed with left ventricular dysfunction, hypokinesis, systolic and diastolic function (heart failure), in 2001, to this date, no cardiologists wrote heart failure diagnosis on my medical records.

I have a long list of health issues which have never been investigated. And when investigated, either not written in my notes, in which case I found out when I requested test results, for which I had to pay.

I met hundreds of people who like me, worsened, suffering heart failure, strokes and heart attacks, denied a full diagnosis, found out in A&E, when too late to reverse with diet or more natural options.

What most people don't know is that doctors are not obliged by law to give a diagnosis, keep record of medical history, or even refer to tests. The law has been designed to protect doctors in this country to give as few as possible a diagnosis. Watch this chilling video and listen up when she mentions the legislation brought about by Cameron concerning health care delivery:

 
My mother died (not DB -related) due to an inaccurate diagnosis. I did not sue for various reasons, but, whatever skepticism I had held at that time of the medical profession this tragedy reinforced a trillion-fold.
I think the entire medical profession should be held accountable and responsible for their actions on every level.

(I also think that fines should be given to medical practitioners for their inappropriate attitudes such as smugness and superiority. A bit extreme and it will never happen, but, its a nice fantasy)
 
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