by tentimes » Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:42 pm
I'm a counsellor by trade, and I will never forget the time I went to see an older GP, just before I went off to do my counselling qualification in England. I was telling him about it for some reason (and I had already done some certificate training), and he said to me "Well, you know what it's like then" [rolls eyes][tuts] "listening to all that moaning, all day... you just switch off, don't you". I will never forget it. I also worked in the surgery down the road and sort of knew him, so I suppose he saw me a bit as a colleague rather than "just" a patient.
I worked in GP surgeries for years. During that time I found that about 80% of the traffic in a GP seemed to be people just abusing the service. These 80% (nominal figure) probably make up a minority of society, but they do abuse services and don't just go to the doctor when necessary, like you or I would. We are talking stuff like coming to the surgery demanding to see a Dr at 8.30am on Monday morning because the cat had eaten their valium etc. It was the same families and frankly we spent most of our time dealing with social problems.
I say all the above as some sort of defence of what I am about to say. The result of this constant onslaught of pushy abusive patients wasting the resources was that many (my guess is the majority, given my experience working in 3 different surgeries and seeing exactly the same thing) of the doctors just get pissed off and then get a glazed look over their eyes, just trying to see the day out and wishing they had never become a GP. There are another group who just get on with it, then another group who care too much and always ran over time with their patients, always the last to finish up a surgery. It's this last group and the second last group that I hope I see when I go to the doctor.
I heard similar stuff to what you quote in the book all the time in the coffee room. I can see it from both sides. Unfortunately though, I have now been badged with the problem patients as I am an informed patient, and Doctors really don't like that in general.