Should GP's be replaced
Discussion
Justayellowbadge said:
el stovey said:
I didn't mean to single out you in particular, just a general statement towards these PHs 'being a doctor/whatever is easy' threads.A condescending attitude, ambivalence to social skills and feeling comfortable in short sleeved shirts of man made fibre are not the sort of skills any johnny come lately can pick up, oh no.
The Hawkwind tour T-shirt that was old 20 years ago. ...
And their ability to bore people senseless with obscure factoids from otherwise unknown sci-fi
Personally I thing some of them are complete a
holes.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
holes.http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Edited by so called on Friday 3rd September 10:09
Sevo said:
chim said:
Totally with Rags, in fact stated very much the same. Doctors have to go through a mountain of training and deserve the pay they receive once qualified, in fact for a lot of them the money is not important. What I am getting at is that this talent pool are completely wasted in many instances in the surgery environment. Here they get to sit through a daily torrent of 10 minute appointments with people that should no better and pop next door to the chemist for an Asprin.
There has to be a better way of dealing with this than wasting this valuable resource at huge cost.
I agree that the public need to take more responsibility for their own health. Its diabolical how frequently and inappropriately many people present. There has to be a better way of dealing with this than wasting this valuable resource at huge cost.
The NHS has tried to move some of the clinical load to non-doctors, usually nurse practitioners. In the right environment they are great but often not much cheaper than doctors because they are usually senior nurses with years of accumulated pay increments. In the wrong circumstances they can cause carnage, as an example it takes years of experience (of medicine, not nursing) to catch the seemingly trivial set of complaints that actually point to an underlying cancer.
Like in everything, some are bad, some good, most average. The average standard in medicine in this country is very high though.
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
petrolveins said:
OP I'm not sure you actually appreciate the roles of GPs today, they do far more than you think, and are also paid less than you might think. They also have to sort out a heck of a lotta crap out.
I may not, I have a very good friend that is a GP though and he is thick as plank (side issue, to much medical crap in head in opinion)) and he is the first to admit it. He is on call a lot and takes home in excess of 100k a year. Now given the amount of years they have to set by in med school and training to reach that level I can understand that, my point though is could that front line diagnoses not be done at slightly lower level, thus freeing up these guys to do more serious doctoring at the sharp end.Edited by chim on Thursday 2nd September 16:56
t patients from taking up the specialists time ? Nurses you said ?
Right , so who's going to do the nurses work ? You ?
Come on, stop being silly..
The human body is quite complicated. Not sure whether you appreciate that, and believe it or not, most parts of the body interact with other parts of the body, and most systems interact with other systems, hence medical staff need to learn ALL those systems to be independently practitioners.
968 said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
petrolveins said:
OP I'm not sure you actually appreciate the roles of GPs today, they do far more than you think, and are also paid less than you might think. They also have to sort out a heck of a lotta crap out.
I may not, I have a very good friend that is a GP though and he is thick as plank (side issue, to much medical crap in head in opinion)) and he is the first to admit it. He is on call a lot and takes home in excess of 100k a year. Now given the amount of years they have to set by in med school and training to reach that level I can understand that, my point though is could that front line diagnoses not be done at slightly lower level, thus freeing up these guys to do more serious doctoring at the sharp end.Edited by chim on Thursday 2nd September 16:56
t patients from taking up the specialists time ? Nurses you said ?
Right , so who's going to do the nurses work ? You ?
Come on, stop being silly..
The human body is quite complicated. Not sure whether you appreciate that, and believe it or not, most parts of the body interact with other parts of the body, and most systems interact with other systems, hence medical staff need to learn ALL those systems to be independently practitioners.
t sherlock, would never had thought the human body was complicated. Nope, I thought it was a bit like a lego set, get the instructions and off you go.I am not suggesting day release to college for a spotty teenager and then let loose. I looking at the 60% of crap doctors have to deal with day in day out. I would not be surprised if many cases of serious illness are missed by GP's due to the malay that has set in from the drudgery of daily surgery.
Its almost criminal that this talent pool is lost in the crap they have to deal with.
chim said:
No st sherlock, would never had thought the human body was complicated. Nope, I thought it was a bit like a lego set, get the instructions and off you go.
The post was in sarcasm as your lack of awareness about GPs jobs and your idea is absurd.t sherlock, would never had thought the human body was complicated. Nope, I thought it was a bit like a lego set, get the instructions and off you go.chim said:
I am not suggesting day release to college for a spotty teenager and then let loose. I looking at the 60% of crap doctors have to deal with day in day out. I would not be surprised if many cases of serious illness are missed by GP's due to the malay that has set in from the drudgery of daily surgery.
Its almost criminal that this talent pool is lost in the crap they have to deal with.
Malay? Didn't realise we had a Malay problem here.....Its almost criminal that this talent pool is lost in the crap they have to deal with.
Seriously though, Nurses have been upskilled already to try and deal with a number of commonly encountered conditions, to reduce the burden on the GPs and in hospitals. However unfortunately very few of these nurses are able to work entirely independently, precisely because their training does not encompass enough depth of knowledge in anatomy, pharmacology, pathology and physiology. Unfortunately this is a problem encountered in every country in the world. Some deal with it by training more doctors. We have a limited capacity in our universities.
Other countries with no state provided health care rely on the public to take greater responsibility in their healthcare. Here, that does not happen.
I'm not clear on your argument now chim.
Originally you said:
All have their advantages and disadvantages, but GPs wil always be at the heart of it, because you need someone to quickly and efficiently sift through what is presented to them to decide the next course of action. Although they are 'General Practitioners', they are actually highly specialised at this specific task. And its not just about diagnosis >>> prescription. The GP will act on the patients behalf to lead them through a complex system encompassing different professionals and different organisations usually with different concurrent illnesses. -This could mean heart disease, Diabetes, and Mental Health/addiction problems rolled into one.
To use an analogy, avionics systems, ground crew, cabin crew all contribute to many safe flights, but at the end of it all you need a pilot to land the plane not an 'up-skilled' hostess. That isn't meant to demean nurses, -I used to be one, but Flight companies don't deem pilots as cost ineffective.
I think you could look at the arguably disproportionate power of the BMA and the development of GP £contracts£... but that's another story.
edited for 'spazus typus'
Originally you said:
chim said:
...So, it seems to me that we are spending fortunes to send these guys to medical school for many many years then paying them a small fortune to do what is in fact, a fairly basic job.
Now you're saying:chim said:
I am not suggesting day release to college for a spotty teenager and then let loose. I looking at the 60% of crap doctors have to deal with day in day out. I would not be surprised if many cases of serious illness are missed by GP's due to the malay that has set in from the drudgery of daily surgery.
Its almost criminal that this talent pool is lost in the crap they have to deal with.
A health service, -any health service, will depend on what you want out of it. You can have a minimalist one such as the US, which offers very good care to those who can afford it, or a state funded system which tries to provide everything to all, but rations on the basis of how much income it has pulled from the taxpayer. Or you can have something in between, or something completely different such as the Cuban system, which has many more GPs per head of population than we do, to run a thorough preventative service because they can't afford to provide the quality of acute/chronic care when you get properly ill. Its almost criminal that this talent pool is lost in the crap they have to deal with.
All have their advantages and disadvantages, but GPs wil always be at the heart of it, because you need someone to quickly and efficiently sift through what is presented to them to decide the next course of action. Although they are 'General Practitioners', they are actually highly specialised at this specific task. And its not just about diagnosis >>> prescription. The GP will act on the patients behalf to lead them through a complex system encompassing different professionals and different organisations usually with different concurrent illnesses. -This could mean heart disease, Diabetes, and Mental Health/addiction problems rolled into one.
To use an analogy, avionics systems, ground crew, cabin crew all contribute to many safe flights, but at the end of it all you need a pilot to land the plane not an 'up-skilled' hostess. That isn't meant to demean nurses, -I used to be one, but Flight companies don't deem pilots as cost ineffective.
I think you could look at the arguably disproportionate power of the BMA and the development of GP £contracts£... but that's another story.
edited for 'spazus typus'
Edited by captainzep on Friday 3rd September 13:33
captainzep said:
To use an analogy, avionics systems, ground crew, cabin crew all contribute to many safe flights, but at the end of it all you need a pilot to land the plane not an 'up-skilled' hostess. That isn't meant to demean nurses, -I used to be one, but Flight companies don't deem pilots as cost ineffective.
I think you could look at the arguably disproportionate power of the BMA and the development of GP £contracts£... but that's another story.
edited for 'spazus typus'
such a good post until you went and ruined it all by comparing Nurses and AHPs to glorified waitresses who can do a bit of first aid and know how to operate simple mechanical devices I think you could look at the arguably disproportionate power of the BMA and the development of GP £contracts£... but that's another story.
edited for 'spazus typus'
Edited by captainzep on Friday 3rd September 13:33
No. Our GPs, by and large, do a difficult job very well.
It's the rest of the NHS that's the problem. It is insane that a relatively small country has a health system employing more people than anything short of the Chinese army or the Indian Post Office! And it's got worse and worse under Labour, who used it as a dumping ground for a million or so people purely to rig the unemployment statistics.
It's the rest of the NHS that's the problem. It is insane that a relatively small country has a health system employing more people than anything short of the Chinese army or the Indian Post Office! And it's got worse and worse under Labour, who used it as a dumping ground for a million or so people purely to rig the unemployment statistics.
grumbledoak said:
No. Our GPs, by and large, do a difficult job very well.
It's the rest of the NHS that's the problem. It is insane that a relatively small country has a health system employing more people than anything short of the Chinese army or the Indian Post Office! And it's got worse and worse under Labour, who used it as a dumping ground for a million or so people purely to rig the unemployment statistics.
Yep, amazingly I agree with you. The costs of delivering health care in this country have spiralled as a result of ever increasing layers of management and bureaucracy. This is true both at community and hospital level. The attitude of NHS management can vary. I've worked with some brilliant and innovative managers who really care and really want to improve things, and help their medical colleagues. However, more commonly, I've encountered indifferent and obstructive jobsworths who have little common sense or imagination and have demonstrably hindered the smooth running of the hospital. Some have behaved like bullies, using intimidatory tactics to bully staff into complying with whatever diktats they order.It's the rest of the NHS that's the problem. It is insane that a relatively small country has a health system employing more people than anything short of the Chinese army or the Indian Post Office! And it's got worse and worse under Labour, who used it as a dumping ground for a million or so people purely to rig the unemployment statistics.
mph1977 said:
such a good post until you went and ruined it all by comparing Nurses and AHPs to glorified waitresses who can do a bit of first aid and know how to operate simple mechanical devices
It wasn't a direct comparison, -as I said I used to be a nurse myself, along with its 3 years of what is nowadays fairly rigourous academic training). But I was trying to make a straightforward point to the OP (who, to be fair to him obviously doesn't live and breathe healthcare) that the gulf between medic and nurse is too significant to bridge when it comes down to the complexity of what bowls up to primary care day in day out. Otherwise thanks.
captainzep said:
mph1977 said:
such a good post until you went and ruined it all by comparing Nurses and AHPs to glorified waitresses who can do a bit of first aid and know how to operate simple mechanical devices
It wasn't a direct comparison, -as I said I used to be a nurse myself, along with its 3 years of what is nowadays fairly rigourous academic training). But I was trying to make a straightforward point to the OP (who, to be fair to him obviously doesn't live and breathe healthcare) that the gulf between medic and nurse is too significant to bridge when it comes down to the complexity of what bowls up to primary care day in day out. Otherwise thanks.
968 said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
petrolveins said:
OP I'm not sure you actually appreciate the roles of GPs today, they do far more than you think, and are also paid less than you might think. They also have to sort out a heck of a lotta crap out.
I may not, I have a very good friend that is a GP though and he is thick as plank (side issue, to much medical crap in head in opinion)) and he is the first to admit it. He is on call a lot and takes home in excess of 100k a year. Now given the amount of years they have to set by in med school and training to reach that level I can understand that, my point though is could that front line diagnoses not be done at slightly lower level, thus freeing up these guys to do more serious doctoring at the sharp end.Edited by chim on Thursday 2nd September 16:56
t patients from taking up the specialists time ? Nurses you said ?
Right , so who's going to do the nurses work ? You ?
Come on, stop being silly..
The human body is quite complicated. Not sure whether you appreciate that, and believe it or not, most parts of the body interact with other parts of the body, and most systems interact with other systems, hence medical staff need to learn ALL those systems to be independently practitioners.
petemurphy said:
968 said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
paprika said:
chim said:
petrolveins said:
OP I'm not sure you actually appreciate the roles of GPs today, they do far more than you think, and are also paid less than you might think. They also have to sort out a heck of a lotta crap out.
I may not, I have a very good friend that is a GP though and he is thick as plank (side issue, to much medical crap in head in opinion)) and he is the first to admit it. He is on call a lot and takes home in excess of 100k a year. Now given the amount of years they have to set by in med school and training to reach that level I can understand that, my point though is could that front line diagnoses not be done at slightly lower level, thus freeing up these guys to do more serious doctoring at the sharp end.Edited by chim on Thursday 2nd September 16:56
t patients from taking up the specialists time ? Nurses you said ?
Right , so who's going to do the nurses work ? You ?
Come on, stop being silly..
The human body is quite complicated. Not sure whether you appreciate that, and believe it or not, most parts of the body interact with other parts of the body, and most systems interact with other systems, hence medical staff need to learn ALL those systems to be independently practitioners.
petemurphy said:
surely a well programmed computer would remember all those systems better? always strikes me docs are like IT - when i go in in they give you a general cure first ( same as reboot ) and then if pushed diagnose by asking a set pattern of questions that could easily be deduced by a computer and someone who could use it. hell my last doc actually used google himself
Don't be daft. Or, watch more 'House'.Patients lie and conceal. You'd just have GIGO.
grumbledoak said:
petemurphy said:
surely a well programmed computer would remember all those systems better? always strikes me docs are like IT - when i go in in they give you a general cure first ( same as reboot ) and then if pushed diagnose by asking a set pattern of questions that could easily be deduced by a computer and someone who could use it. hell my last doc actually used google himself
Don't be daft. Or, watch more 'House'.Patients lie and conceal. You'd just have GIGO.
anyway its bound to be lupus
petemurphy said:
anyway its bound to be lupus
If it's 'House', every other week. I believe that expert systems are gaining some credibility for use by the Doctor. The Doctor can try to worm out the truth, and the expert system suggest things that are not common enough for a quick correct diagnosis. I don't see us having a supermarket style self-serv diagnosis machine any time soon.
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