Free Confessions of a GP by Benjamin Daniels Page B

around the room.

Lists
    Please don’t bring a list of problems when you see your GP. I understand that you might not get to the surgery very often. Perhaps you have to sweat blood to get an appointment. Maybe you had to plead with your boss for the morning off and then beg our receptionist to squeeze you in. In fact, it is probably so difficult for you to get an appointment with your doctor, you’ve saved up all your niggling health queries that have been building up for the last few months and thought it would be better to get them all sorted out in one visit. Please don’t!
    We have ten minutes per appointment. That isn’t very long, but we GPs pride ourselves in dealing with even quite complex problems during that short period of time. We have to get you in from the waiting room, say hello, listen to your concerns, take a history, examine you, discuss options, formulate a plan, write up your notes and complete any necessary prescriptions or referrals…all in just ten minutes! It’s amazing that we ever run to time. However, if you have saved up four problems to sort out, then that leaves just 2.5 minutes per problem. That isn’t very long and we’ll either spend 40 minutes with you and annoy the rest of the morning’s patients by running very late, or we’ll only half-heartedly deal with each problem and probably miss something important. This is clearly bad for your health and our indemnity insurance premiums.
    If you do have a list of several problems, please warn us from the start and tell us what they all are. I’ve frequently had patients tell me that they are here to talk about their athlete’s foot and then after a leisurely ten minutes casually mention their chest pains, dizzy spells and depression on the way out of the door. If you have got several problems you want addressing, try booking a double appointment or decide what problem needs to be dealt with that day and book in another time for the others. Moan over. Ta.

Ten minutes
    I see the ten-minute appointment as the patient’s time to use as they so wish. Most patients will fulfil the time in the conventional way with a discussion of a health problem that we then try to collectively resolve. However, any GP will tell you that not all consultations run like this. For example, one of my patients uses the time to tell me about the damp problem in her spare room and another about the affair that she is having with her boss that nobody else knows about. I have one patient who comes into my room, sits down and strokes a toy rabbit in complete silence. Initially, I desperately tried to engage her in conversation, but I have long since given up and now I get on with some paperwork, catch up with my e-mails and check the cricket score online. When her ten minutes are up, she gets up and leaves. She doesn’t even need prompting, a perfect patient!
    Some people would consider these patients time-wasters but I don’t have any reason to judge a person’s motives for coming to see me. I’m not working in casualty. You don’t have to have an accident or emergency to see me. I’m a GP, which basically makes me the arse end of the NHS. If you turn up on time and leave after ten minutes, I’ll let you talk about anything. In fact, the three above-mentioned patients are among my favourites. My patient with the damp trouble has been updating me on her ongoing problem for months now. She enters my room agitated and upset and then erupts into a monologue on the woes of damp and the turmoil it is causing her. I do very little during the entire consultation other than pretend to look interested and reassure her that it is all going to be just fine. I do gently point out to her when her ten minutes are up or she would stay all afternoon. She is always eternally grateful that I have listened to her and insists that I have made her feel much better. She then happily goes to the desk to book herself in to see me at the same time next week. I also now know the