The BritMeds 2007 (8)

MMC, MTAS, call it what you will, pick your own acronym, is destroying the morale of young doctors in this country. They will leave the country. They will leave medicine. What other group of experienced young professionals are writing like this:

Do you have any idea what you're putting people through? 20-odd thousand people - human fucking beings - feel like this right now, and because you couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, you've extended their suffering until Monday.

Does New Labour have any idea, any idea at all, what MTAS and MMC is doing to British hospital doctors? Does it? Read the whole of this desperate post from SHP. And she does not often feel the need to write like this. Remember last weeks post?

And then when you have read that, read this from a young British surgeon:

I'm going to feel so ashamed when I have to tell people - people who love me and care about me - that despite everything I've put into my career so far, I'm a failure. My life so far has been a complete and utter waste of time. And I'll have let everyone down.

It doesn't matter that I've achieved well beyond what was ever expected of me - all that matters is whether or not my name is drawn out of the MMC hat. It's a sickening, depressing thought. And I don't like it. I wish it would go away.

Do you really think that this is right? What are we doing to our doctors?

People get angry at having to pay prescription charges. The UK pharmacist spells out a few facts of life.

The Cambridge “angry medic” is wading through the most traditional of traditional medical courses. All six years of it.

Being in a highly traditional course, it is easy to lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. This is simply because the tunnel is so long (a Cambridge medical course lasts 6 years; longer if you choose certain course options). I signed up to be a doctor. I wanted to wear the white coat, to treat patients, to haunt hospitals, to prescribe medicine. But a medical course is not so easy. Before they teach you what you need to go out into the world and treat, you have to jump over a few hurdles first. You have to learn biochemistry. You have to learn physiology. You have to learn pharmacology.

Read “Ask not what your profession can do for you…”

Dr Crippen has never heard of CATS (as in the three letter acronym, not feline) It seems Dr Grumble has, and he does not like them. Or is it, “it”? Something to do with “capturing patients”. Full story from Dr Grumble here.

Meanwhile, Dr Jest is turning into a grumpy old man.

Patricia said she would resign if she could not balance the books. And it looks like she will balance them too. By any means she can. This London reports:

Calls for 'Del Boy' Hewitt to quit over NHS budgets

When Dr Crippen was a medical student and then a houseman at a big London Teaching Hospital, he felt much put upon. He was treated like the world’s gofer. Nothing much has changed. See what happens to a medical student when she tries to “help out”

NHS Finance - as simple as that

The Department of Health has just issued its update on those financial deficits.

As we've blogged many times, we know for certain that the system will be in small surplus by year-end because the Commissar has promised to resign if it isn't. And sure enough, the latest forecast is for a surplus of £13m.

But behind this manipulated net result, of course, is a continuing crisis. Deficit trusts have actually moved into even greater deficit than last year, but they've been "covered" by the simple expedient of witholding funds from other trusts- "top-slicing" as the DoH calls it. The underlying figures show a gross deficit of £1,318 million compared with £1,179 million at quarter two and £1,312 million in 2005-06.

If you want to know how Patricia is going to fiddle the books, it is all here.

We all want to support cancer charities, but sometimes the adverts are…mawkish, unacceptable, unrealistic…you name it.

Lucia Pasqualino

Lucia, who we met last week, has leukaemia, and predictably strong views:

Obviously, people will come on here expecting to read a heart wrending tale of a "sufferer battling through chemotherapy". I'm not a sufferer, a victim, or neither am I "plucky". Sorry if I don't match your requirements.

This week she is writing about "cancer adverts". She does not like a lot of them. Nor does Dr Crippen.

Campaigning the right way?
Theres a certain advert I keep seeing on TV that hits a nerve. I know without Cancer Research UK working their damn'd hardest I wouldn't be sat here typing this to you, but I think its time they thought about the true impact of their recent adverts. For instance, one shown last year. It showed a young girl with her dripstand walking down a corridoor with flickering lights. It was sad but I don't think it was very realistic. It was all too clinical, glossy even. Plus they all had hair.

See what Lucia has to say here.

Then take a look at these two adverts. Which do you prefer? Maybe you hate them both. Is this the best way to raise money for cancer research? Let Lucia know.









A patient with advanced breast cancer has to switch from private health care to the Scottish NHS.

Potentilla - switching to the NHS

Can the NHS still deliver for breast cancer? Was her experience good or bad? Is does not start well, as she is kept waiting for the insertion of a biliary stent:

….sitting perched up on the table in gown and slippers, mouth and throat numb and tasting vile, not able to assume the position because I had not yet signed the consent form and they had temporarily mislaid their surgeon…..

Did it get any better ? Full story of a breast cancer patient Switching to the NHS here.

I think that my skull is a cage and I share the space with another creature. Sometimes the creature sleeps, or goes quiet, and then I foget about the cage and the creature and all is well, and I live in the world and not in my head and I begin to believe that it's all over and the beast is dead. Sometimes the beast and I are in love and all is well and we control the world and everything in it. Those are the hypomanic times. The rest of the time, my skull is a cage and I share it with a creature that hates me with such a dead white heat of rage that I can't hardly breathe.

Read more in Borderlines.

A G.P. and mother juggles QoF points and small children. Can it be done? See GeePeeMum

Still at work at 5 to 8. Going home now. All I can say is - if I have had a pay increase, then I bloody well deserve it. I work a lot harder now than I used to. If I can't see my children I can at least briefly blog about them.

And still she struggles with the vagaries of QoF.

SJHoward, as excellent as ever, explains why the NHS (aka the taxpayer) is being ripped of every year by drug companies overcharging.

In Norway and Holland less than 1% of all bloodstream infections are drug resistant, while in Britain the figure is 44%. Figures compiled by the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System, which Dutch doctor Hajo Grundmann co-ordinates, show that Britain has higher rates of MRSA than all comparable European countries, including Germany, France and Spain, and is ranked with Cyprus, Malta and Portugal.

Why is this? Because British hospitals are the filthiest in Europe

Dr Rant advises his PCT

Dr Rant is asking “who needs Primary Care Trusts” – he has strong views as always.

Karin writes a knitting blog. Mostly baby clothes it seems. Great pictures and patterns. And she is pregnant.

I finally feel like I can enjoy being pregnant. But I am not happy with the NHS. I am going to check out a private doctor next week, hopefully he is nice and I will feel in good hands.

Oh dear! Check out Karin’s Knitting

Doctors receptionists are the spawn of the devil! Says a commentator on:

There are a million stories in the naked city…
The system at the surgery is that you have to phone at 8am in order to get an appointment for that day; you cannot phone to make an appointment in advance. Therefore EVERYBODY who wants to see a doctor is naturally hitting their dial button as soon as 8am comes round before the surgery runs out of appointments. When Chris finally got to speak to the receptionist all the appointments were filled. He asked if he could make an appointment for the next day......OH NO...he would have to try again at 8am the NEXT morning and hope to get through in time. No luck Tuesday either...by now he is in agony and his back shows no sign of improvement.

And so it goes on. Read it all in “The No Help Service

This is an American site, but relevant to the UK. It compares health care services the world over. France comes top. The USA comes 37th. Take a look to see where the UK comes. See the Healthcare in America Blog

Snakes and Ladders is a new blog about a couple struggling with NHS infertility investigations. The start is not promising.

This was met with a blank face (mine). Did it really matter what length of time had passed before we’d sought help? Was it not more that we’d been told that M was borderline infertile? I explained this to my SSD (stupid student doctor) and she simply said that it was ‘NHS policy’ not to allow anyone who’d not been trying unsuccessfully for less than 2 years to go onto the NHS wait list. At this point I quickly lost my rag and needless to say SSD got her knickers in a twist and I sat in the chair shrieking for someone ‘who fucking knew what they were taking about to come and see me, right now!.’

See The Journey so far

Metro.co.uk reports on a brawl in an operating theatre

THE Home Office pathologist who carried out the post-mortem into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot by police on the London Underground, has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct after he altered his findings in a separate post mortem involving a hospital death in Yorkshire. (see here)

I don’t think Relate would approve of this:

From the UK, here’s the self-improvement book the male-dominated publishing industry knows all hetero young married girls have been waiting for: Babyproofing Your Marriage.

Read it all in : UK housewives deep throat to save the marriage.

Some commentators think Dr Crippen is paranoid about The Spine.

Your medical confidentiality is at risk from this new database, as over a million NHS employees and central government bureaucrats will have access to not only your medical records but also your demographic details—name, address, NHS Number, GP details, phone number (even if it’s ex-directory) and mobile number.

There is no opt out whatsoever for your demographic details. The Big Opt out shows they have got you whatever you do.

Ask Not For Whom the Ambulance Bell Tolls, It Tolls for the NHS

See the Civitas Blog

The Recovery Archive looks at UK teenagers developing cirrhosis of the liver.

Mania is the gift you don't know you have to pay for till the bill turns up, and it's part of its character and a little bit part of its charm that it doesn't matter how many times you get burned that way you never learn. (Source)

Another foreigner I fear, but the topic is essential reading. Oh to see ourselves as others see us: Read “Great moments in Socialized Medicine : Women’s Care

Jill and her family are battling with cancer. A moving new blog. Jill currently has yet another problem:

The view of the cause of this varies depending on who you believe and who has the most commonsense, if any, not an easy matter when dealing with the NHS.

See Jill Burn’s Blog here.

"Midwives are the weak link that no one wants to talk about"

An article in the Times no less. Midwife muse is not happy.

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Last week we had a long debate about how best to deal with the lunatic fringe of politics; whether it is best to ignore them, or debate with them and show their “policies” up for what they are. “Spirit of 76” has had one of these fringe gentlemen continue the debate on his website. He appears to believe that Adolf Hitler was a British secret agent, working for Britain, and financed by well known Jewish bankers in Germany.

Spirit of 76 says:

The BNP guy has just turned up on *my* blog. So, if you want to engage with his views, you can do so there without going to his site (and thereby increasing his Google ranking). Nice little compromise solution?

Go here to read his insightful, non-insane viewpoint.

I have just been and looked here and here. I do not think we should ignore this person. I think we should summon the men in the white coats. Can anyone take this stuff seriously?

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Any reader wanting to look the pick of the week's none medical blogs should go over to Tim Worstall's weekly Britblogs.

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Please send your recommendations for next week’s BritMeds to: thebritmedsATnhsblogdoc.wanadoo.co.uk