From a GP in response to an article on the shortage of GPs.
Seems he'd been saving it up for a while:
I'm a GP. I left school at age 17, rubbish comprehensive in
South London, no qualifications upon leaving, pulled my socks up and
went to evening classes 4 nights per week for 3 years to get O and A
Levels to get into medical school whilst working as an office junior in
the day. Dream achieved and won a place at a London Medical School.
Worked hard there and even won a few prizes. Worked as a houseman doing a
1 in 2 rota for the first year after qualification and then several
years as a junior hospital doctor doing 1 in 3 rotas. The nights on call
were busy and never more than about 2-3 hours sleep per night but youth
made it bearable. My out of hours rate of pay was just 1/3 of my
weekday daytime 8:30 am t0 5:30pm rate and not time AND 1/3. The NHS
really did quite well out of the medical labour force.
I switched to general practice after about 10 years of hospital practice and took up post about 15 years ago.
I've never been busier as a GP. The Public seem to feel it's there God given
right to have access to my services as often as they see fit. They'll
demand a home visit at the drop of a hat, are rude to my hard working
reception staff, are lazy, malingering, two faced, spiteful and in many
cases unwilling to take any responsibility for their own health and are
often the most dire of parents to their young kids. I see the same
pathetic, whinging, spineless flotsam time after time. Many will have
miserable, erratic, unfulfilled stressful, low income lives and come to
see me with their psychosomatic illnesses and neuroses looking for a
cure. when in actual fact there is no cure and their misery is a result
of their own past failings.
I'm obliged pay 6ooo pounds per year in Medical Indemnity because this lot are so litigious.
My small minded envy ridden countrymen are only too willing to believe the
tediously frequent and totally nonsense press stories of us GP's
having astronomic salaries and of being incompetent to a man. It's as if
the public have an instinctive resentment of anybody who has become a
doctor and the media feed this.
Sixty odd years of free at point of delivery health care has corrupted the people of Britain who now
seem to think that as it's 'free' then they'll have as much of it as
they can grab and that the State and the States representatives are
responsible for guaranteeing every facet of their security and
happiness.
The very elderly who knew life before the Welfare
State came about are entirely different in their attitudes and are a
nobler group of people who are a much more rewarding group to treat.
There
is a shortage of family doctors and it's no wonder. The Public deserve
what's coming to them. Still, if it's so easy and lucrative they can get
trained up do it themselves.
