Your life is in their hands

Re: Your life is in their hands

mariette asselbergs — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 22:10:19 GMT

Years ago a friend of mine who was a GP visited us with her three year old daughter. We had a chicken with a clutch of small chicks around. Asks the three year old her mother: "Why do the little chicks go under their mummy?". And to my astonishment my doctor friend says without a moment of hesitation: "They are going to drink milk darling"! A moment later she realised the absurdity of the answer, but she said, coming from a large city, she had always assumed that was what chicks did until now shortcutting it with her biological knowledge.

Re: Your life is in their hands

Thomas Johnson — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:55:11 GMT

I would agree that some in the medical profession seem unable to transfer their knowledge to other species, however other seem to manage it very well. I'm currently treating a cocker spaniel with pancreatitis, its owner is a retired GP, he seems to understand his dog's condition very well. And going back to my student days, a medical student friend of mine had a phone call from his parents asking him what they should do as their cat had diarrhoea, his question to me was, "should thay do the same as with a person, starve it for 24hrs then feed it bland foo?" To which the answer was obviously "yes"!

Re: Your life is in their hands

Stephen Courtney — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:09:48 GMT

I think if a GP can't diagnose a dead dog, they should be struck off. After all, how can they possibly sign a good sicknote if they cannot spot a dead-un?

Re: Your life is in their hands

nikki — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:08:47 GMT

have to say i have generally found most of our medically trained clients have a complete inability to transfer any of their knowledge to animals and will ask the most ridiculous questions and ignore the most obvious clinical signs until it's too late. I dont know whether it's just that we are so used to transferring our knowledge between species and regularly applying it to species we may not know an awful lot about or what, but it appears to be a common theme. I would much rather have a vet try and save my life than rely on a doctor to try and save my dog!

Re: Your life is in their hands

Gerry Henry — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:02:12 GMT

The tone of this thread is unacceptable; GPs work for the NHS (all kneel) therefore they are saints, beyond reproach and worth every penny of their 120k per annum; shame on you for casting aspersions.

Re: Your life is in their hands

Richard Carter — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:18:53 GMT

Or the genuine amazement that a dog could become not just diabetic but insulin dependent diabetic and that you would have to treat it 'just like a person' (and that as a vet you might have any idea what that would mean)

Re: Your life is in their hands

Anthony Todd — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:42:14 GMT

Or the pharmacist who, when asked to measure how much her dog drank per day said firmly "half a saucepan"....

I mean, what would your next comment be??

Re: Your life is in their hands

Dagmar Steele — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:20:52 GMT

I'm lost for words.... But then, one of my clients is a dentist who was unable to take out his dogs stitches after a lump removal. I had told him they were intracutaneos self dissolving ones and didn't have to be taken out, he tried anyway and messed up big time!

My very good and caring pain therapist owns a cat with severe liver failure, won't look further into it and won't treat apart from feeding a diet - cat turns up very jaundiced regularly, further investigations always declined. At least it's still alive and this is going on for some years now. Sigh.

Re: Your life is in their hands

Hannah Wynne Richards — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:01:53 GMT

I had a family-husband and wife both medical consultants-husband came in requesting worm tablets for a cat not seen for years-records just said Mr and Mrs.

Conversation went as follows:

Me All my worm tablets are prescription only, so it's illegalfor me to supply unless your cat is under my care-and I haven't seen it for years

Owner The tablets from the pet shop don't work

Me What seems wrong with your cat ?

Owner It's loosing weight

It turned out the cat was diabetic

Also have a medical GP owner who won't worm her dog regularly-because it's too expensive-on her salary. She also has a child, so I made her sign a disclaimer that stated she had been told correct worming intervals-so she can't sue me if her child goes blind

None of them are capable of deciding whether or not someone is capable of working, so it's not surprising they can't tell if someone's dead

Wynne

Re: Your life is in their hands

Martin Atkinson — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:35:56 GMT

No folks it is serious. I went to pick up the body yesterday afternoon and it was lying in a pool of shit, vomit and piss and covered in flies - the rest of the house wasn't a lot better. GP owner got some brownie points for passing the opinion that the dog must have been bleeding internally because it had melaena but lost them because she still persisted with NSAIDs!

Re: Your life is in their hands

Claire Fisher — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:26:10 GMT

My sister is a doctor, she asked me to sex her labrador puppy for her as she couldn't tell if it was male or female!

Re: Your life is in their hands

Mark Holmes — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:26:51 GMT

Who is (S)He? Just so I know to get a second opinion if (S)he ever signs my death certificate.

Re: Your life is in their hands

Louise6732 — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:08:50 GMT

Really seriously?

Re: Your life is in their hands

Clive Ansell — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:32:25 GMT

No way - this has got be the wind up of the day? sure it's not a parrot that has passed on or a Fawlty Towers scene?

Re: Your life is in their hands

Claire Edgington — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:25:49 GMT

Words fail me!

Re: Your life is in their hands

fluffygirl — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:12:42 GMT

Truly worrying.....

Re: Your life is in their hands

bob lehner — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 11:18:13 GMT

You cannot be serious .......?

I've had plenty of lay-people going through the same scenario - but surely not from someone medical ???