General Practice Work Experience - Day 4

My last day, thanks to my mum who booked us plane tickets for friday (yes, I am blogging from Sweden)! I was with a nurse again today, it was a weight management clinic morning primarily, but there were other people who came in with different issues too like dressings that needed to be redressed and ears that they wanted to be syringed. 

Although it was a long morning and it would have been nice to have shadowed another doctor, it was still a valuable day. Again I'm going back to the massive variety of patients who came through the door, but it really is astonishing. It sounds odd, but I really had no idea how much diversity of people we have! 

I have always been a believer of treating patients with a holistic approach. It isn't going to do them any good if they are being treated for their physical problem but feel no better as a result, maybe due to their family situation at home or perhaps they are getting stressed at work. I think the doctor's job is to make patients feel better in every sense, not just physically. Of course this does however have to be judged by each individual situation as it arises, but this is my general principle. The nurse provided a fine example of this.

Despite being the person in charge of weight management in the practice, she knew her priorities. She would always ask the patients how they were in other areas of their life, and she made sure that they had their own priorities straight too. For example some patients had far too much on their plate in other areas of life to worry about getting a couple of pounds off in the week, despite religiously turning up every fortnight to have a meeting with the nurse about their weight. The nurse was able to 'see the wood through the trees'. She didn't insist on the patients spending the ten minutes talking about weight if she could tell it wouldn't help them. Some consultations seemed to turn into full on counseling sessions! But the important thing is that she knew that helping them with their other problems would, at that stage in their life, have a much greater effect on them becoming healthier than worrying about losing a few pounds. 

Don't get me wrong, I know that doctors they need do everything they can to cure patients with physical or mental problems. But sometimes I just don't think that it is enough on its own for the general, all around well-being of people.

Overal then this week has been an enlightening experience of life in general practice, as well as seeing how other healthcare professionals like nurses work within a GP practice not just doctors, which before I had no idea about really. But also and especially in fact, in how to treat different patients in the non-medical side; how to communicate with them and judge what other treatments they may need. It has reinforced my belief in the importance of a holistic approach to medicine.

General Practice Work Experience - Day 3

I'm afraid I didn't have time to do this post on thursday, but late is better than never!

On wednesday I was in the immunization clinic with two nurses. I was mostly babies and toddlers with their parents who came through the door to have the regular MMR vaccines, whooping cough and others.

Again, I really enjoyed it. You're probably fed up with me saying that, but it genuinely is true! It was really interesting to see how the nurse treated the children; it seemed to come so naturally to her to engage them in what was going on (as much as she could anyway, there's only so much one can do to engage a newborn!). But the most interesting thing for me was how she treated the siblings. This is something that I'm especially passionate about, making sure that when dealing with something which families are involved with, everyone is included in what is happening and everyone should understand what is being done. The nurse did this very well with parents, but also with the siblings, depute lots of them being just three or four years old. She was careful to make sure that they were prepared for their brother or sister screaming once the needle had gone in and she explained in child-friendly terms why there was a need for it. It is really important I think to get them involved. 

I only had the morning though, and went home at about 12 when the appointments were finished. Even still it was a very valuable experience in how families should be involved in the treatment of their loved ones, as well as just getting more of a feel for day-to-day life in a GP surgery.