Doctors Getting thing wrong

A friend of mine has a son who, when he was about 9, took a kick at a football (at school), missed and kicked a brick wall instead. The headteacher took him straight to A&E who x-rayed his foot and said that he had broken bones, plastered his foot and waited for his parents to collect him. Parents had to cancel the holiday that they were going on a few days later. Six or so weeks passed and the plaster was removed, the doctor on duty that day looked at the boy's foot and asked why he had been in plaster as the foot showed no signs of breaks. My friend and her husband were not pleased.

My daughter had a psychiatrist fall asleep while she was talking to him - does that count?

Does anybody ever stsrt s thread sbput ehen doctors get it right? Sis in law has recently retired as a GP and I will never forget the time a young mum rang t her at homr to say her baby "just wasn't herself". Nothing specific, a bit lacklustre and a bit off colour. Something tripped in sis in law's mind and she got mum to do the tumbler test (this was in the years before we as parents knew what to look out for) she ordered an ambulance and had the baby whisked into Pembury hospital where she was diagnosed with meningitis. She was a young GP at the timeb but thanks to her quick reaction and instincts this baby suffered no ill effects.

Does anybody ever stsrt s thread sbput ehen doctors get it right?

If they do, then I have a couple of contributions for that one as well.

Many years ago when I was first married I went to A&E with terrible pains in my shoulder. The doctor I saw diagnosedf a kidney infection!!! I wasn't convinced so didn't take the pills he'd prescribed (just as well they were quite nasty ones) but went to my GP next day and she diagnosed pleurisy which cleared up very nicely with the right treatment.

On the other hand DH might well have died 18 years ago if our GP hadn't been convinced that something was wrong and kept digging away and DS could have been seriously ill if our current GP hadn't had a hunch that his very untypical symptoms were actually appendicitis.

In the end I think doctors are like parents, if they know you well enough they know when something is wrong.

I remember insisting that a patient was admitted with appendicitis.
The presenting symptom was knee pain
The registrar was very reluctant, but I was right. It was a retro caecal appendix and a rare presentation.
Rely very pleased with myself.

I also think that we mustn't expect doctors to be psychic - we need to tell them exactly how and what we are feeling, not just as an elderly lady in our village said to her doctor "I had one of my heads" (!) It turned out after some time that she was showing symptoms of vascular dementia but I do wonder what her GP made of her description!

Nowadays my GP seems to ask me what I think is wrong with me and what I think the treatment ought to be. At least if I misdiagnose myself I cannot sue him for misdiagnosis!

Had to go back 3 times to convince the Dr that I had breast cancer. She finally rang me at work to suggest that perhaps I needed further investigation. After that the treatment was brilliant,

Having finally got a diagnosis and successful treatment for DH our GP apologised to me for nearly killing him. I said "Don't apologise you were the only one who believed there was something wrong!"

*Soutra" my MiL had two sets of symptoms - feeling funny or being uncomfortable. These covered the whole range of her ailments (which was quite extensive) Couple that with her mania for telling the doctor what she thought he wanted to hear and he had no chance.

It was only the persistence of his GP that led to FiL's Parkinson's being diagnosed.

We had wondered why the doctor insisted on seeing him every month when his only known medical problem was high blood pressure. When FiL collapsed in street, conveniently close to surgery, he was home with a full diagnosis within hours. His GP said he knew something was wrong with him and had a pretty good idea what it was but whenever he asked FiL how he was he always replied that he was fine. So he decided to see him every month until something was said. FiL later said that he was so afraid that he had cancer that he kept just saying he felt fine when he didn't!!!!!!!

He was a lovely man but always tried to avoid facing up to the unpleasant things in life.