Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Doctor who?

12:55 / 17.08.05

Inspired by Illmatic’s ‘Body’ thread, and BBC2’s The Private Life Of Harley Street this week, I’m interested to hear about people’s relationship with the medical profession, particularly general practice.

Under what circumstances do you consult your GP? How often? What do you think of hir? Are you proactive about your health? Apparently women are twice as likely to see their GP than men; why might this be? Are men just less comfortable admitting weakness or frailty than women, or are there other reasons?

I almost never consult my GP (I’m not even quite sure who my GP is); perhaps one visit every few years. I only have one medical condition of note (Cluster Headache) and that’s now taken care of by the specialist neurologists. My experience of getting this condition diagnosed (or rather *not* diagnosed for a number of years and a number of GPs) no doubt informs that fact that I can be pretty dismissive of general practitioners, but if I’m being honest I don’t think I’ve ever bothered myself much with them. I think this is partly to do with an urge to be stoical about ailments (although I think it’s fair to say that I just get fewer ailments than most – a cold every two or three years, a bit of back ache here and there…), but I also detect a weird resistance over and above my stiff upper lip. I do wonder, for instance, how long I’d have to be pissing blood before I went and got my prostate checked out. It would certainly never even occur to me to get myself a check up without having any obvious, dramatic symptoms. This is all very Bad and Wrong, obviously, but I’m not always entirely rational about these things and I don’t think I’m the only one. Notably, this isn’t consistent with comparable professionals. I have a very different attitude to dentistry, for example. And when I was driving, I would be more likely to present a creaking car to a mechanic than my creaking body to a doctor. Anyone else like this? What’s going on?

13:22 / 17.08.05

I really liked my doctor when I was about six or seven - it was probably a line, but I remember him writing a prescription for some medicine and asking what flavour I wanted (I went for banana) and him telling me that if he didn't like a kid, he would give him the horrible medicine flavoured one that made you feel sick. Apart from that, my GP and I have barely met, my teenage (when I was a teenager) GP was good, but he retired years ago, my current one did a general health check when I joined, and that was it.

My dad had a bad experience with the doctoring profession though - he was prescribed some tablets for a minor complaint, suffered severe reaction to them to the point of poisining his liver, and was rushed to hospital, when he tried to query what had happened, the GP started telling lies about the prescription, and he was given a massive run around before being kicked off of their books. He is still in terrible health, and for ages couldn't find a doctor.

13:34 / 17.08.05

I've been thoroughly converted to GPs this year!

I was pretty stressed out this time last year, what with doing a shitty job, and my GP helped brilliantly. I couldn't sleep (I never sleep well, but this was getting crazy), so she helped out with a few sleeping tablets and also advice on sleep management and so on. And on getting a new job!

And then I came out in stress related eczema, tried for a while with 'alternative' creams and lotions and then finally went to the doctor. Two days later, cured - and it hasn't come back.

So, it looks like I'll go more readily that you Smoothly, but both times I did feel at the end of my tether, it wasn't the first option. I feel bad if I think I'm wasting their time - being an NHS doctor is stressful enough without me turning up with a runny nose.

I've always been very pro alternative medicine, but in both those health problems I had spent loads of money on alternative remedies (acupuncture, half the local health food store's products...) and got nowhere. Then I turned to the GP, and was sorted out in days. So I'm pretty positive about western medicine and GPs now.

13:37 / 17.08.05

I was taken to the Doctor regularly as a boy, to be diagnosed with this or that and treated. The local GP was treated like a minor deity, despite my father being a chemist and my mother a nurse.

I would be more assertive about my needs now and I know that, though extremely knowledgeable and well-trained, they don't know it all. Mind you, I haven't registered with a London doctor yet, after three years, so that says something about how much GPs figure in my thinking.

Since leaving home I have scarcely gone near a GP. I used one for sick notes when I wanted extensions on essay deadlines at University but have otherwise, like Smoothly, preferred to suffer stoically.

I have enjoyed robust good health all my life, *touching wood right now*, and, after a lifetime working in hospitals, I have no desire to go near one unless paid to do so.

Doctors are for socialising with and shagging, only.

13:49 / 17.08.05

Doctors are for socialising with and shagging, only.

You might like my dad then Xoc.

Another stoic here. I went to the GP back in June with a chest infection, but the last time before that was in 1996, I think. My father, I am sure, shaped my attitude - we were given to understand that the body is a pretty remarkable thing that generally healed itself. Luckily that has proved to be the case with me.

13:52 / 17.08.05

I have had generally negative impression of doctors in my adult life. I don't go to the doctor very often, and because I've moved around a lot in the past 6 years I don't really have an established relationship with a doctor. I rarely visit the doctor for minor ailments as it is very difficult to get an appointment quickly, so I don't bother.
When I was suffering from depression it took me an awful lot to face up to it and actually tell someone I was having problems. When I did I was given little or no advice by the doctor, there was a student doctor in with me whom the GP kept pausing to quiz about SSRIs. I wasn't offered any kind of counselling or alternative treatment, I was just given a prescription, and told to come back if I wanted it refilled.
The entire thing was somewhat disheartening, and definitely mad me less likely to consult a GP.
Dentists however I have no problems with. I go for check-ups every 6 months, though I do complain about the cost.

14:09 / 17.08.05

Yeah, I’m very positive about ‘western’ medicine too, Ariadne. But I generally assume that ‘alternative’ medicines quickly become part of the mainstream if they prove to be effective. I just don’t imagine the men in white coats turning their noses up at an effective treatment for something, just because it’s found in bark or crystals or whatever.

I feel bad if I think I'm wasting their time - being an NHS doctor is stressful enough without me turning up with a runny nose.

And

Dentists however I have no problems with. I go for check-ups every 6 months, though I do complain about the cost.

See I think this might be really significant. I get the impression (okay okay, mostly from Scrubs) that in the US, people are far more likely to present themselves to doctors, and to take a more pre-emptive approach to illness. Full-body scans for apparently healthy people are quite common across the Atlantic, aren’t they? And I know Dr. Cox for one *disapproves* of these. Meanwhile, in the UK, routine check-ups and a more proactive approach are things the medical community don’t think we do enough. (However, as my sources suggest – ‘Scrubs’ and ‘The Private Life Of Harley Street’ - this is quite possibly a huuuge misrepresentation)

So I wonder if people who use private healthcare are more likely to avail themselves of it than people who use the NHS. I certainly think that a reluctance to place an extra strain on stretched resources has a role to play in my stoicism and strictly reactive approach. If I paid directly for a GP’s services, I might complain about the cost, but I think I’d possibly go more readily.

14:40 / 17.08.05

I think you may be on the money there, Smoothly. I never go the GP, if there was anything seriously up with me, I'd go to A & E, but (being interested in bodies) I'd love to pop in for a equivalent of an MOT, general chit chat about my health. This is very much the model of the Doctor's that I grew up with, I seem to remember going regularly with my mum. It seems understandable, if not entirely logical that there would be more interest in health of a growing child than an adult.

I do go though when there's something wrong with me, no question. Only that's very rare *touch wood*. I've been prompted to be dillegent here by the horror stories of a mate of mine who ignored "twinges" and aches for ages till he ended firstly, passing out in the street with pain from kidney stones, and secondly, being rushed into the operation theatre with his appendix fused to his intestines. I don't think it's wise to ignore that stuff.

Disagree with this though:

I generally assume that ‘alternative’ medicines quickly become part of the mainstream if they prove to be effective. I just don’t imagine the men in white coats turning their noses up at an effective treatment for something, just because it’s found in bark or crystals or whatever.

I think there might be huge resistance to more "touchy feely" modes of healing, but that's another topic. It may be down to the indivdual practioner, but I assume GPs would look for strong evidence for a treatment before prescribing, and I suspect there may be a lot of bias towards pharmacology in the evidence gathering process. Can anyone comment on that?

14:54 / 17.08.05

That's a bit of a sticking point I think. Doctors and so on say that they'd be happy to prescribe "alternative" medicine if only there was clinical proof. The alternative medicine sector (for want of a better term) says that clinical trials are highly biased against them, and cost too much to carry out.
I have to say I tend towards the doctors' viewpoint personally, but I admit I'm biased that way.

15:00 / 17.08.05

There is the argument that the pharmaceutical industry can't control the market for rose quartz etc, in the same way they can drugs.

15:44 / 17.08.05

Hmmm. I've posted around this area before, I think - off the top of my head, in The Head Shop and Film, TV and Theatre. It's quite a tangled area for me: I find it hard to disentangle myself from the various (sometimes contradictory) shrinky/doctory viewpoints I've inhabited, in order to think about my relationship with my doctors.

At best, I think my 'patient status' is compromised by my being a doctor myself. People often imagine that this enables me to access better treatment more quickly, but this isn't a hypothesis I've ever really tested. If anything, I tend to overcompensate a bit, presenting myself only if I'm absolutely sure I won't come across as needy, hypochondriacal or otherwise wasting of Precious Medical Time. I typically find myself apologising for having broken bones or dropped my blood pressure, and I'm quick to pull the 'well, it's a while since I read this stuff' gambit when asked my own opinion on what ails me.

Like Xoc, I only recently registered with a London GP, after three, four years here. As with other posters, this is partly because I have few ongoing medical concerns (asthmatic - and, being able to prescribe for myself, I can pick up inhalers etc. fairly easily) but also partly down to a more nebulous feeling that doctors are best avoided. This is partly informed by my growing awareness of the differences between State-subsidised and private healthcare, the latter being all very proactive in a super-duper 'full body scan' kinda way, but also tending toward overdiagnosis and overtreatment - which I consider at least as harmful as undertreatment. The first bit of the Hippocratic Oath is 'do no harm', innit?

Jake, Colossus of Clout

16:06 / 17.08.05

I never go to the doctor unless there is something seriously wrong with me, and then I go to the Emergency Room. For example, four or five years ago I was very ill, but I thought it was just some sort of flu. My friends had to drag me to the doctor, who then diagnosed me with a potassium deficiency, and politely informed me that if I had waited another day to come in, I would have died. I spent the next five days or so hooked up to machines, eating soft foods. Ugh.

I had some extremely bad experiences with hospitals and doctors when I was a young'un, and it's given me a sort of phobia. Whenever I go into a hospital my heart starts jackhammering and my fight-or-flight reflex starts twitching away in my noggin. It's very unpleasant.

I love dentists, though. I like the squeaky clean teeth I come out with.

19:19 / 17.08.05

Despite not going to a GP unless dragged there by wild horses, I too am very happy to go six monthly to the dentist for a check up, and there's usually some work to do. NHS dentist though, so cost is not usually bank-breaking.

There are a few ways I might explain this. One is that my dentist is a lovely guy. He is very competent, very socially skilled, and very handsome.

The real reason, I suspect, is that regular visits to him result prevent me turning into some Elizabethan gap-toothed creature. It is also unlikely that he will diagnose anything worse than a crown that needs replacing.

With a GP, there's always the fear that he'll suddenly look very grave and whisper "Curtains for you, Xoc. Unlucky, dude." Certainty of the fact that he's infinitely more likely to say, "Hypochondria is not fatal, Xoc" doesn't allay that unease. So, unless I absolutely had to, I wouldn't volunteer to see a GP. Definitely wouldn't go to have a check up, just in case. None of which makes any kind of logical sense, I know.

In fact, just writing all of that down has convinced me I should go register with a local GP and submit to the battery of state-decreed tests.

Tryphena Absent

19:32 / 17.08.05

On average I go to the GP once every few years, generally for conjunctivitis or some other ailment that I need a course of drugs for. I go to the surgery nurse once or twice a year generally for some issue centred around my stupid reproductive system.

I used to really like my GP, he was very dry and never took anything seriously, which is very comforting when you're a minor hypochondriac.

21:25 / 17.08.05

my gp is fantastic. i have seen her for about fourteen years now and she has become a friend. i only see her when i need to and the times between visits vary, but i choose to need to for fairly regular checks and she gives me a thorough inspection whyever i'm there and so knows me well, which is a great boon when i go bit off; she is much better informed to find out why.

she has also taken her own initiative to contact me during some periods of her treating some of my health issues, which has been doubly effective, both for her being kept informed and the glow of health it inspired in me that my health professional (who has been through some serious health traumas and a loss of her s/o all at once recently and is a brave individual who i in any case admire) actually cared to take a personal interest and that level of support was itself a comfort and an aid.

but maybe i am just lucky.

a close friend is the senior health bureaucrat for the territory i live in, a skilled doctor himself, and the issues facing the practice of gps are threatening their future, but it is this personal service they can offer that is the valuable commodity most at risk. but my friend is a constant source of reassurance in the profession, for all its pitfalls and for all alternative health practices' many virtues (many of which i avail myself, i note)

health's a funny issue - it seems to me that many people, notwithstanding any of the comments in posts above, seem to have unreasonable expectations of what proportional role health professionals (and i include both traditional, alternative and western all at once here) should play in your own responsibiities to your own health. maybe it is just a human compunction to want someone to blame... i'll stop rambling now. i like my docta.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

23:23 / 17.08.05

Gotta say that I've had a good line of good family physicians.

In fact, I've never really had a problem with doctors. Ok...there were those two who wanted to stick tubes in different orifices and pump strange fluids into me...but after the fiberoptic camera I quickly put a stop to those two.

Maybe its just a Canadian thing. Becuase all the doctors I've met have been polite, courtious, and friendly. Then again, I sometimes think that they're just happy to have an intelligent person who can properly answer their questions and actually only comes in when strange things happen to him.

Question to the doctors in the audience: Do you find that your medical training allows you to diagnose yourself, or do you find it more difficult than diagnosing someone else?

00:36 / 18.08.05

I suffer no white-coat syndrome. I'm almost perfectly comfortable with doctors; I get a complete physical every year and I go in to see my GP whenever something new and unfamiliar crops up and doesn't go away within a couple of weeks. I think my comfort level comes from being a cancer patient - doctors helped me kick cancer's ass, ergo, I love all doctors. Although I'm still not too comfortable with the whole getting naked in front of them part.
As for women going to see a GP more often, well, it makes some sense. If you're using hormonal contraceptives, you should get a thorough checking out every year. My doc won't even give me the prescription unless I agree to come in for a physical.
I think a lot of people are intimidated by the possibilities arising from going to a doctor. While kicking cancer's ass, it kicked my ass pretty good, too, so I get some odd ailments related to a lousy immune system. I usually go online, through WebMD or the like, and punch up my symptoms. This way I know the best case and worst case scenarios, and their common treatments, before I go see my GP. So she and I can have an intelligent conversation about it. I've known a fair number of people who don't do this sort of pre-GP research, they're scared shitless to go to a doctor and wait until they're on death's door before making an appointment. And then they're completely blindsided when their symptoms turn out to be something requiring real attention. Maybe people assume their bodies will just heal themselves, because that's what bodies are supposed to do.
Sure, the cavemen didn't have doctors, but an awful lot of them were dead before they turned 25.

08:38 / 18.08.05

I haven't been to a GP in probably close to a decade, as I haven't had anything more serious than a cold. I've had the odd heavy cold or bad cough but I didn't want to get a course of antibiotics if I didn't need it so I stayed away and always got better eventually.

After four years in the UK and now that I know I'll be settled in Edinburgh for the forseeable future, I finally got around to registering with a medical centre and went in for the checkup. The nurse just weighed me, checked my blood pressure and asked me a couple of questions. That was it!

So really I have no idea whether I'm in good health other than that I have good blood pressure and weight. I'm interested in the notion of a general checkup though. What should it entail and how reliable is it in terms of spotting potential problems?

09:56 / 18.08.05

I'm interested in this whole general check-up thing too. I registered with a GP the last-but-one time I moved house, and had to fill out some forms but have never actually seen the GP in person. Should I have had some sort of poking and proding physical exam when I joined? Should I have one every year or something?

Dentists, on the other hand: I *know* how often I should go. I just don't, because they are all mean evil bastards.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

11:04 / 18.08.05

Dentists know when they want to see you, becuase presumably they know when their mortgage payments are due. And they call you a week before, and then a day before, to remind you of that fact.