GP's are just CRAP!

[Indiscreet]

Vegetable oil is terrible crap you need to avoid. Take no notice of this man. Keep eating your good fats (olive and coconut oils, plus fish oil caps) and keep training. See a physio - preferably one trained in sports - and he or she can always refer you to your doctor for an MRI if they feel you need one (you may not).

I go to doctors for two reasons: I have a problem I recognise but know I need a perscription to fix (eg antibiotics for bad cystitis, or steroid cream for a bad rash), or I have symptoms that scare me. Though, to be honest, last time I went to the docs for something that scared me, they couldn't find anything wrong. Fortunately, I got better, but they were pretty rubbish then. Doctors are fine if you have the former sort of problem, but they are not good at vague symptoms, and they are almost completely useless for sports injuries.

[itsgot]

it's funny how the consensus is that doctors are pretty rubbish, these guys are generally in the top 15% of the country in terms of IQ, they train for a minimum of what 7 years and have to demonstrate continued learning year on year... 99% of the people they see day on day have the same basic problems then someone comes in with 'i get numb at night can i have a testosterone test' and unsurprisingly the GP doesn't have an answer, perhaps the training they received says BMI is important, this is to be expected if you consider the length of time it takes for a country wide medical viewto be established and doled out and you have to consider they're aiming to treat the masses their not specialists

a few years ago prior to the internet the populace had less access to medical advice/information/self diagnosis so it's quite a new problem for GPs that most people can disagree with them... in years to come the medical world will harness this access to global information so GPs can provide a much better service

anyway, just thought i'd point out the views in this thread are surprisingly narrow minded, especially the thought that most people in this forum have the aptitude to do the job of a GP, how many doctorates do we have in here lol don't over-estimate yourself

[suj]

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it's funny how the consensus is that doctors are pretty rubbish, these guys are generally in the top 15% of the country in terms of IQ, they train for a minimum of what 7 years and have to demonstrate continued learning year on year... 99% of the people they see day on day have the same basic problems then someone comes in with 'i get numb at night can i have a testosterone test' and unsurprisingly the GP doesn't have an answer, perhaps the training they received says BMI is important, this is to be expected if you consider the length of time it takes for a country wide medical viewto be established and doled out and you have to consider they're aiming to treat the masses their not specialists

a few years ago prior to the internet the populace had less access to medical advice/information/self diagnosis so it's quite a new problem for GPs that most people can disagree with them... in years to come the medical world will harness this access to global information so GPs can provide a much better service

anyway, just thought i'd point out the views in this thread are surprisingly narrow minded, especially the thought that most people in this forum have the aptitude to do the job of a GP, how many doctorates do we have in here lol don't over-estimate yourself

they were 2 different queries actually, i didn't say "i get numb at night, so my testosterone is low" actually!

and if you research BMI it doesn't take into account muscle mass/bone composition, so if he just advised me to lose 25kg, is that the right thing to listen to being the "patient"?

oh yeah i forgot to mention when i said BMI isn't right, he said we can do the measure test, i said what's that, he said "where we measure your hips in comparison to your waist (just abova navel)" i was 35.8inch hips, 37.1inch waist, he said "actually you are not as fat as BMI says"

and he said the numbness was not related to my weight full stop, he just couldn't believe how much "bigger" i got, so that's why he did the BMI

and also top 15% in the country (for IQ)? where are these statistics from? degree's are not all about IQ, i know people who have low IQ's (well not low, but not amazingly high) and have got degree's in things that are meant to be "hard", not because they are blistering smart, but because they worked harder then the smarter people!

like you said they are human, they should know that sometimes others might know a bit more about something then themselves (like how i knew BMI is a load of bull) instead of being like "i got a doctorate so i know BMI is right"

(you are welcome to your own opinion, but saying because someone doesn't have a doctorate they are not as/more smarter then a GP, i am not a PT, yet i have made people routines which are better then most PT's, i don't think i'm better then them, but i gave better advice when i did to that person!)

[comanight2]

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"i think you will be wasting the NHS's money"

Wish theyd say that to fat people!

[Resolution]

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Wish theyd say that to fat people!

And smokers

It is as explained about though really, Doctors are much more tuned into certain areas; when something comes up that they don't really know too much about they revert to what they do know. Usually this points back to being overweight, and hey presto they measure this in BMI

Don't worry yourself about it

[Just a Girl]

I actually work for my own GP and I agree with the majority opinion on here. If it weren't for his admin staff and practice nurse, my GP wouldn't have a damn clue. In fact, the only thing we don't do is run his surgery for him.

The demonstration of continued learning is a rubbish too - I type my GP's appraisal every year and I know the crap he puts down that just isn't true. Yes, he attends training courses but they are one day courses where everyone sits around, listens to some spiel and gets a free lunch and comes away with a nice certificate.

Suj, don't let him knock your confidence dude

[HBK]

The fault doesn't lie with the GPs the GPs genuinely do a good job and a damned hard one. The problem lies when a patient comes along that requires some new thinking and the information they're given just isn't there yet.
Complains should be forwarded to the head of the health system, not the man at the bottom trying his best with what he's got.

[CosmicFish]

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The fault doesn't lie with the GPs the GPs genuinely do a good job and a damned hard one. The problem lies when a patient comes along that requires some new thinking and the information they're given just isn't there yet.
Complains should be forwarded to the head of the health system, not the man at the bottom trying his best with what he's got.

I can relate to what you're saying, being near the bottom of the chain in my own job. Problem is, however, when a GP doesn't know something and then bovinepoos to cover their ignorance. I fix PCs for a living. When I don't know the answer to a question my response is "I don't know - I'll go away and find out for you", not "I don't know but I'll pretend that I do, potentially jepoardising your health in the process, because I don't want to lose face".

I've seen too much of that from GPs.

[NU_nutrition_TS]

I agree with suj - to say GPs are among the top 15% for IQ so therefore they must know what they are talking about is both naive and insulting! I have a MENSA accredited IQ in the top 2% of the country (or as was when I was tested) and I have taken IT aptitude tests at a recruitment agency and beat uni graduates in both score, accuracy and speed. Having a diploma or doctorate is no guarantee of intelligence or ongoing learning and especially not of common sense!

[itsgot]

to be fair i didn't say "GPs are among the top 15% for IQ so therefore they must know what they are talking about" so you can put your naive and insulting back in your napsack along with your mensa cert, i think HBK made my point in a more concise manner than i did so apologies if i didn't make myself clear

lets not talk about degrees in general, your confusing my point, there are plenty of degrees with zero entry requirements and little worth... but as a degree medicine is about as hard as it gets, a doctorate in medicine is one of the most highly regarded qualifications you can get so you're on another planet if you think joe blogs off the street could ever get one

a typical gp is smarter than average, they've worked all their life in medicine and given up a lot of their life to further their learning, so on the whole i think they're pretty good and successfully serve a purpose within society, saying that they are tied up in a lot of red tape, they can't deviate too far from prescribed knowledge and they arn't specialists so there's a limit to what they can help with, further as in any walk of life people have character flaws or you could just catch one on a bad day, i'm sure there's plenty of rubbish ones out there but overall i think it's pretty lame to throw them all in together based on a few experiences, better to look at the bigger picture