I get slightly annoyed at GP bashing, although I suppose I am slightly hypercritical as I regularly take the mickey out of other specialities. Although its always obvious that I still respect the job they do.
But for some reason it goes to far with GPs, one colleague told me she didn't want to be a GP as she wanted to do a job that needed a medical degree.
However, indirectly everything we do at medical school is geared to preparing us for being a GP (50% of us will be GPs afterwards), in psychiatry we are taught to quickly perform a risk assessment on someone with depression, in ENT when to refer someone with hearing loss and when not to.
Is it down to jealousy? Probably.
In my experience GPs are some of the best teachers out there, I learnt how to take a history from a GP and I still remember that lecture.
They do a good job well, why are'nt they appreciated?
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I recently discussed this with a Junior Doctor friend of mine at a dinner. He has no interest in being a GP but one of his cousins is. He has a great amount of respect and spent some time shadowing his cousin before medical school and sometime during to gain extra skills.
ReplyDeleteI think it comes from the notion of "selling out". Doctors spend years of their lives confined to the walls of a hospital being very much in the thick of it and very much depended on, in rather acute high-pressure settings. As a result you become unreservedly loyal to the hospital, the walls that confine you and the people. When someone after an X amount of years leaves all that to work in a small practice in yorkshire in the countryside, where they perhaps make a bit more money, and perhaps work a few less hours (I say perhaps, because that isn't usually the case) then it's I think it's hard for some doctors to take GP's seriously.
I love my GP's, I think it's facinating how much they know, about a huge number of things, they are the jack of all trades in medicine and should be taken very seriously. There's a great deal to be learned from them.
It's the same in Nursing. I met a surgical nurse last year who scoffed at Community Nurses. It's all leg wounds and wiping arses - her words not mine. Yet I feel there is a huge amount to learn from community nurses because like GP's, they usually have spent a large chunk of their career in hospitals in a variety of settings before they make the change.
It's hard to hear people talk such crap about a profession you have alot of respect for. But there are huge totem polls in each profession and it sadly makes others feel good to bash those who take a different route in their careers. It might be deemed as the "soft option" but it's not, so long as you know that, then sod what anyone else thinks.
Likely hood if 50% of your collegues are destined to be GP's alot of them who are bashing the career choice now will become one someday anyway. They will see.
What NHS Nursing student said...
ReplyDelete(And thank you!)
Thank you for the comments, they are appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the idea of becoming attached to hospitals. In hindsight where I used to work before University was crap, although during my time there I was fiercely loyal to the place even though I did loads of hours for minimum wage.
I was teaching 1st year medical students yesterday on how to use an otoscope. I told them it was an important skill to aquire as 50% of them would be using them regularly when there GPs. There was a sharp intake of breath and a lot of muttering at that statement