After I wrote here yesterday about the length of time it often takes to convince the medical profession that there's something really wrong when you have cancer, I serendipitously met an old family friend while I was walking the dogs. It seems that it's not just cancer sufferers who are made to feel as though they're a nuisance and malingering when they make repeat visits to their GP to report their symptoms; the family friend told me about a relative who has recently been diagnosed with polymyalgia after many visits to the GP and various consultants. By the time the diagnosis was made, this person had visibly deteriorated and yet was being made to feel that it was "all in your mind".
Admittedly, there are people who go to visit their GP at the drop of a hat and for nothing more than a minor sniffle, but there are also people like me who visit very rarely - while I do go for regular check-ups at the hospital, I haven't seen my GP since the day after my stitches were removed in January 2007 - and have no intention of doing so unless it's really necessary Until my mother died and my cancer surfaced, I had not been to see my GP for some time. Indeed, I remember clearly that when I first visited my last GP, he looked at my records and commented on how scarce my visits to any GP had been over the years. Why, then, was I labelled "clinically depressed" when I first presented with physical symptoms after my mother's death? Now, I was displaying some symptoms of depression, but those were, as I've written before, related to physical symptoms which just happened to coincide with major life events. Those physical symptoms were ignored as soon as it became apparent that I had recently lost my mother and that her death had been somewhat traumatic.
Unfortunately, the diagnosis of "clinical depression" stuck with me and is now on my records for any other GP to see, even though both my current GP and the consultant I saw then have admitted orally that, "we made a mistake".
Again, as I've written before, by the time my cancer was diagnosed, my GP and I were scarcely on speaking terms, and I was made to feel that I was deliberately malingering and wasting time that the GP could have given to people who were "really ill". It seems that this is what happened to the person the family friend told me about, too. When you're sick, coming into contact with a hostile doctor is the last thing you want to happen. My visits to the GP's surgery regularly left me feeling worthless; I knew there was something seriously wrong, but I didn't feel confident enough to insist, and the doctor's hostility unnerved me. Indeed, I was so worried about those visits that I didn't ask for tests that I should have had as a matter of course when presenting with the symptoms I was reporting. Eventually, they were done, but only because the GP suddenly realised that they should have been - and told me that this is why they were offered to me.
Why does this happen? Why are seriously ill people so often misdiagnosed or made to feel that they are imagining their illness? The majority of people I know to whom this has happened - though not all - are "women of a certain age" whose complaints are put down to "your age", or "your hormones" or the elderly. Why is this? Are members of these groups really seen as less useful to society than others? Certainly, I noticed a huge change in the attitude of my GP towards me as soon as I reached the age of 40, and I wonder how widespread this is.
Would education help? Should medical students be told that not every patient who returns regularly is a malingerer? Should the general public be educated to understand that their doctor is fallible and that if they're not satisfied, they should ask for a second opinion or would this just fuel the medical professional's hostility towards patients they consider are wasting their time?
I don't know the answer to this dilemma, but I do know that something needs to be done. Too many people are suffering and dying because they aren't taken seriously. Cancer research may be making huge steps forward but, as I've said before, diagnosis seems to be based on chance and luck - and not only for cancer. Given the choice, I'd rather have early diagnosis and a better prognosis than later diagnosis and access (or not) to "wonder drugs" that might prolong my life a little when whatever illness I have has spread to the point that it can't be cured.
Admittedly, there are people who go to visit their GP at the drop of a hat and for nothing more than a minor sniffle, but there are also people like me who visit very rarely - while I do go for regular check-ups at the hospital, I haven't seen my GP since the day after my stitches were removed in January 2007 - and have no intention of doing so unless it's really necessary Until my mother died and my cancer surfaced, I had not been to see my GP for some time. Indeed, I remember clearly that when I first visited my last GP, he looked at my records and commented on how scarce my visits to any GP had been over the years. Why, then, was I labelled "clinically depressed" when I first presented with physical symptoms after my mother's death? Now, I was displaying some symptoms of depression, but those were, as I've written before, related to physical symptoms which just happened to coincide with major life events. Those physical symptoms were ignored as soon as it became apparent that I had recently lost my mother and that her death had been somewhat traumatic.
Unfortunately, the diagnosis of "clinical depression" stuck with me and is now on my records for any other GP to see, even though both my current GP and the consultant I saw then have admitted orally that, "we made a mistake".
Again, as I've written before, by the time my cancer was diagnosed, my GP and I were scarcely on speaking terms, and I was made to feel that I was deliberately malingering and wasting time that the GP could have given to people who were "really ill". It seems that this is what happened to the person the family friend told me about, too. When you're sick, coming into contact with a hostile doctor is the last thing you want to happen. My visits to the GP's surgery regularly left me feeling worthless; I knew there was something seriously wrong, but I didn't feel confident enough to insist, and the doctor's hostility unnerved me. Indeed, I was so worried about those visits that I didn't ask for tests that I should have had as a matter of course when presenting with the symptoms I was reporting. Eventually, they were done, but only because the GP suddenly realised that they should have been - and told me that this is why they were offered to me.
Why does this happen? Why are seriously ill people so often misdiagnosed or made to feel that they are imagining their illness? The majority of people I know to whom this has happened - though not all - are "women of a certain age" whose complaints are put down to "your age", or "your hormones" or the elderly. Why is this? Are members of these groups really seen as less useful to society than others? Certainly, I noticed a huge change in the attitude of my GP towards me as soon as I reached the age of 40, and I wonder how widespread this is.
Would education help? Should medical students be told that not every patient who returns regularly is a malingerer? Should the general public be educated to understand that their doctor is fallible and that if they're not satisfied, they should ask for a second opinion or would this just fuel the medical professional's hostility towards patients they consider are wasting their time?
I don't know the answer to this dilemma, but I do know that something needs to be done. Too many people are suffering and dying because they aren't taken seriously. Cancer research may be making huge steps forward but, as I've said before, diagnosis seems to be based on chance and luck - and not only for cancer. Given the choice, I'd rather have early diagnosis and a better prognosis than later diagnosis and access (or not) to "wonder drugs" that might prolong my life a little when whatever illness I have has spread to the point that it can't be cured.
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