Worried about seeing your GP?

Weird.

I just accept it’s what I have to do. Exactly, Tenko.
What I don't inderstand is why the OP wants to make this a political issue, .. Boris, wonderful Government, write to MP etc .... then puts the thread under Chat?

I don’t see a problem with doctors who have had a break , having to do a return to practice course . In medicine things change all time , so it’s important to keep up to date. Also with the NHS there are numerous policies to be aware of and again there are always changes there . For example safeguarding now includes radicalisation and county lines , which didn’t appear 5 years ago .
I’m a hygienist and although I retired 18 months ago , I’ve stayed on the GDC register as I do holiday cover and it’s a bloody nightmare to re register.
I have to register each year and have to do compulsory CPD each year in order to register. I just accept it’s what I have to do .

Strange that the OP has not returned to correct possible typos …

Joseann

^I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61.^
How did you get to be a GP at 14? I thought it took 7 years at least because you need a medical degree which takes 5 years, plus 2 years GP training?

I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61 ,in 2018
2020 ,along came Covid and Boris asking for help from retired medical personnel!
^I responded and restarted in a new practice in August 2020.
I only work 2 sessions weekly but I am 68.^

The arithmetic seems wrong here somehow, as well.

Ah well, perhaps it's typos 🙂

It was an emergency measure. The GMC has, rightly in my view, that those who returned under the emergency measure must, if they want to continue working after 30 March, undertake whatever refresher course they consider appropriate. If I had returned to the law under some emergency measure two years after retiring, and continued to work for upwards of another four years afterwards without the Law Society considering my fitness to practise, would you feel confident to have me working for you? Likewise a doctor, although I could only lose you your money, not your life, if I made a mistake.

So is there going to be an enquiry into how many people died during the pandemic because they were treated by doctors who weren’t fit to be treating them

I hope nobody is writing to their GP based on what the OP has said. It might have been expedient to have retired doctors returning at the height of the pandemic, but I don’t want to see a GP who isn’t up to date, however much they love their job and their patients. I always take a lack of complaints with a pinch of salt - as in law, it might years for a mistake to become evident.

One of ‘those threads’ then.
I also picked up on the ‘40 years a GP and retired at 61’ comment.

Methinks the OP needs quite a bit of re training, to get things right not just in medicine.

This is what the OP was talking about - see the section about those who obtained temporary emergency registration during covid. The date by which they have to contact the GMC about a returner’s course is 30 March, not 13 March as OP claimed. This seems to me an entirely sensible requirement.
www.rcgp.org.uk/your-career/returning-to-gp

Hmmm … and ‘organisational bureau’.

I’m still struggling with the idea that a GP wouldn’t recognise how vital it is to keep up to date, how quickly things change. I know that only too well from law - daily updates to read - so can’t imagine having been away from medicine for two years, returning and then balking at a requirement for a ‘returner’ scheme.

Even stranger when a GP can't spell practising correctly on this thread?

How very strange …

I mean, how did you start training at 14?

I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61.
How did you get to be a GP at 14? I thought it took 7 years at least because you need a medical degree which takes 5 years, plus 2 years GP training?

I agree with your comments Bella23 it is no reflection on the person's abilities but the fact that things change so quickly.

I think anyone returning to a profession can expect to do a refresher course things move very quickly these days.
Though one would hope how long they worked originally would be taken into account. The course and length of retraining being tailored to their needs.

MayBee70
You could send your MP the link I posted. In that link the Dr is named.

Growstuff you have illustrated my point perfectly. I’m sorry that you had to go through that experience.

If I were to write to my MP about my GP, it would be to complain that I can't get an appointment and a serious misdiagnosis when my breast cancer symptoms were dismissed by a GP who hadn't been trained to spot lobular breast cancer. I investigated making a formal complaint, but decided in the end that I didn't have the energy to go through with it and nothing would undo the result of the delay in being treated. However, just because I didn't complain doesn't mean that I was satisfied with the GP's dismissive attitude.

biglouis read the link above about the 13 courses someone hoping to return to work as a GP had to go through. I am willing to bet that those are compulsory whether you have an 'individual' pathway or not.

You are not alone in feeling uneasy, Calipso. For a GP not to undertake continuing professional development (as it was called in the legal profession) is positively dangerous and it concerns me that Mirren, of all people, cannot see that. Saying you have never had a complaint and that you love your patients is not enough. If I had told the Law Society that I had never had a complaint and loved my clients do you think that would have enabled me to bypass the need to prove that I had undertaken x hours of continuing professional development during the past year and get my practising certificate renewed? No way - and I was only responsible for money, not lives.

Mirren

If you are worried about not being able to get a GP appointment then you are going to love this one.
I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61 ,in 2018
2020 ,along came Covid and Boris asking for help from retired medical personnel!
I responded and restarted in a new practice in August 2020.
I only work 2 sessions weekly but I am 68.
I have loved being back..I only retired due to the organisational bureau where I worked
I have now worked, safely, successfully, happily for almost 4 years.
Now , our wonderful Government have decided to stop the " Emergency measures " that Covid prompted. .
I have been informed that, unless I engage with a " Return to Practice scheme " which is ,basically, retraining..then I must stop working as a doctor on March 13th.
I love being a doctor, I love my patients, I am a very good doctor. In my very long career I have never had a single complaint.
Now, when we are so short of GPs the powers that be have decided that I must cease the work the work I love.
You just couldn't make this up ,could you???
I am distraught!
Should anyone feel like writing to your MP , please, feel free!!!!

Mirren, can I copy what you’ve written if I take out the more personal comments eg your age? I’ll then write to my MP.

Am I alone in feeling a bit uneasy about this thread?

Mirren, would it not be more appropriate for you to take up this issue with the GMC? I can't see how appealing to posters on Gransnet to contact their MP, with only the sketchiest of information, is appropriate. I can appreciate that you are upset about your situation but continuing professional education is a reality and a necessity for all professions. I would also suggest that describing a return to practice course as "retraining" is wildly inaccurate.