Just damn rude, patronising consultant surgeon experience

On one of the numerous occasions I've been taken in with my heart arrhythmia I asked the doctor why I hadn't been given the same medication as on the previous admission two days earlier. He just shut me up with "there's a good boy".

On another occasion a sports doctor sat smirking at the nurse stood behind my chair as I was talking to him.

They think I have a needle phobia, so I take it as read that I'll be talked to like a five year old child whenever someone appears with a cannula.

Bear in mind that if you complain it will make them vindictive.

How rude, on both occasions.

jbj --- he could have been the janitor !!

crun -- I'd have asked sports doctor if he was paying attention.
and as for 'good boy'.............. gggrrrrrr....

I worked in the NHS for many years since early 70s and the patronising consultant was the norm - especially surgeons.

I was a social worker and at the bedside of a sick and distressed man, trying to sort his worries out when the sister came and said I would have to leave as a consultant (not this man's) was coming to do his ward round. We were not disturbing anyone, talking very quietly behind a curtain. I stayed, as the man was very distressed and it would have been wrong to leave - in any event, I too had a busy day and work to be getting on with and could not spare the time to come back. The consultant went mad when he realised I was there, and the patient looked him in the eye and told him what a rude man he was! Yeah!

The local orthopods I saw when I broke my foot so patronising - I told them I could not stand on my foot because of pain and was dismissed with "Oh that's just where the plaster has been" - I insisted that it was not - it was a different place on my foot and I had had several fractures in the past and knew what it felt like. They still just dismissed what I was saying - several weeks later a polite surgeon (who I attended privately) spotted the second unhealed and undiagnosed fracture. This is why I still walk with a stick, as by then it was all set wrong. The only cure is a big op that has only a small chance of success. All they had to do was listen politely.

Luckygirl, your last paragraph mirrors my own a few years ago.So I saw someone privately a month later, it was a fracture in the ankle, and he did the op for me.Otherwise I would need a stick now as well!The op worked is what I mean, broken and reset.

Do complain about it jellybean, the sooner the better.

I can remember a couple of thoroughly unpleasant consultants when I was having babies in the 70's.

It makes me realise how lucky we are with the consultant DH has now. He is so caring and always ready to listen to what we want rather than what he thinks we ought to be doing. I live in fear of him moving to another hospital!

Thanks to all for the support/comments. Crun, if it makes them vindictive, they will have me to deal with.

This sort of consultant behaviour was the norm in the 70s, agreed - but this is the 21st century. And would the consultant have spoken to me in that way had I been a private/paying patient? I don't think so.

Still

In 1975 when my DS2 was just 2, he was in Birmingham Children's Hospital for a big op. Our paediatric surgeon was absolutely wonderful - friendly and informative with parents and great with children as well. He did a great job on my son who has never looked back. However, the cardiac consultant, who also worked with adult patients, was rude, arrogant and patronising with parents and impatient with seriously ill children. I was glad I didn't have to deal with him because I am sure I would have given him a piece of my mind. After we left the Midlands for East Anglia, DS was due for a visit to his consultant after 4 years, so I wrote to him to let him know what a normal and active child DS was and asked if he could be discharged. He wrote me a lovely personal letter accepting my judgement. What a gem that man was.

I have not been feeling well, average time for an appointment with GP is about three weeks. This morning I spoke to secretary of Gastroenterologist and I have an appointment on Wednesday with someone who will hopefully tell me what is wrong.

How awful not to have a consultant that you are not at ease with,the gentleman (and he was a true gentleman) who dealt with me when being treated for Ovarian Cancer years ago was a very caring and approachable man,he would come to see me every night after he had finished either his theatre or ward rounds,it was only after I was discharged from the hospital that I found out his wife had died from the same condition 2 months previously and all his expertise could do nothing to save her,so sad.

In the 90's I had to see a consultant about abdominal and ovarian pain (I was, some months later, admitted to hospital as an emergency case, by ambulance with all lights and sirens going).
The youngish registrar sat back in his chair and asked me to describe the pain. I began by saying that it wasn't anything like period pain, it was more... at this point he interrupted me and said "Well now you've told me what it's not like, perhaps you wouldn't mind answering my question and telling me what it is like". I was so shocked and upset, I wanted to walk out. But when you can't afford private consultations, you can't 'vote with your feet' and these arrogant men know that.
Years earlier, when my DS, aged 2, was rushed to hospital to have his stomach flushed (yes, he had managed to find some tablets that I thought were out of his reach ), we met with a doctor in the emergency room afterwards, who asked irritably "why is he crying?" I answered very slowly and deliberately, as if talking to a child, "because he has just had a tube shoved down his throat and the contents of his stomach flushed out with fluids. I would imagine he is scared and in some pain, wouldn't you?"

I have been lucky. My mum had long term bowel problems and went to see the general surgery consultant at our local hospital apparently told her vey rudely that she was too old for surgery and walked out. Mum was probably in her late 70s and had no health issues that would have ruled out an anaesthetic.

The nurses etc were horrified by his behaviour and very embarrassed they aplogised profusely for his behaviour. My mum was too timid to complain.
She was later operated on by another surgeon unfortunately now retired who was very different, polite and friendly. I had some surgery by the same man a few years ago.

I suspect/hope that good manners and communication skills are more widely taught now. Our local hospital has made huge improvements over the last few years . Their Maternity wing has just had commendations from the RCM.

During the same hospital stay that I mentioned up-thread, DS2 had to have many blood tests. On one occasion, he was crying and the junior doctor told him if he didn't stop crying he'd do it again. I was too shocked to comment! DS subsequently had a horror of men in white coats, so much so that when he saw a similarly clad parking attendant at Warwick Castle, he burst into tears. His lovely consultant didn't wear a white coat on ward rounds. As far as I know, 40 years later, DS has got over his white coat phobia!

The times (only twice) when I have answered back to rudeness by medical staff has always resulted in politeness thereafter from them. After a miscarriage, at the time when they still did D&C under general anaesthetic afterwards, I had the worst headache of my life while waiting for my surgery slot. The rude ward matron told me I had a headache because I had got out of bed (and helped some of the nurses folding blankets). I retorted: "Rubbish! I'm dehydrated because I've lost blood and haven't had anything to drink for eighteen hours". She was much more reasonable after that and made sure I got tea straight away when I recovered consciousness, which I promptly puked all over the tray so she had to get me another.

Martin Clunes didn't base Doc Martin on thin air - these stereotypes exist and as a nurse I have been on the receiving end of not only many withering comments but also various instruments and on one occasion a stool. Many times I have had to calm a patient down after something a Doctor has said to them and indeed explain things to them in a way they find acceptable and understandable. Having said all that I have seen some brilliant work, some wonderful clinicians who have saved/improved the life of many. complaining does have results. I complained this year about a locum consultants treatment of me which was clinically negligent which I found more of a sin than his patronising attitude. I don't know what happened to him but I got put back on the list of the main consultant with no problems at all.

I once took DD *(aged about 5) to a consultant ophthalmologist and when she wriggled and looked scared about him putting drops in her eyes, he threw the bottle across the room and sent her away!

Teetime, please tell us that you don't mean 'stool' in the sense of excrement.

I would think (hope) these rude consultants are probably from the older generation when they were treated almost as gods!! When I had breast cancer the consultant was often sharp and rude to his students (although he was an excellent surgeon). His bedside manner left much to be desired but I did find I could ask him any question and he would answer honestly.

I later saw a different consultant when I had a breast reconstruction. He was younger and had a good attitude towards his patients. On one occasion he was examining the reconstruction (my other breast was discreetly covered), he then sat back and asked my permission to examine my other breast just to be sure there were no problems - every time I met with him he was always friendly but also polite and respectful.

Totally understand how you feel. I had a similar experience with a knee surgeon in Leicester- yes, one of the old breeds on their pedestals. At the end of the day, I got over it because he was the best knee surgeon, and this is what mattered.

Using words like 'dear' 'love' 'puppet' is indeed so patronising and would make me leap too- but he is from a generation where they would amount to soothing and kind words, and he could clearly sense you were very tense.

As said, I'd be furious too. However, I really do not feel that this would be a waste of the very time consuming and costly complaints' procedure- personally, and would achieve little anyhow. Hope you feel better now

Oh dear no a wooden stool - we used to have to place them strategically at the side of the bed for the Cardiac Consultant to perch his elite posterior on and I put it on the wrong side of the bed! didn't do it on purpose honest.

Indinana 's post reminds me of the doctor in A&E who had just stuck a bloody great needle into the wound he was going to stitch on my 8 year old son's leg. He asked him why he was screaming ??? I presume that he didn't go into paedeatrics

Perhaps I should just mention our GP who kindly slipped us in at the end of his surgery tonight so that we could have as long as we wanted instead of rushing through in the usual 10 minutes.

I was pregnant with my third child and had two children age 5 and 6. I had lost a baby at 14 weeks a year before, and this pregnancy was to be my third and last child.

The Consultant who came to examine me said "you're 30 and have had 4 pregnancies. I think you should consider being sterilized!!!!"

It made me feel like s---t. Luckily the baby was born healthy and strong and as planned I didn't have another child. The Consultant should have kept his opinions to himself.

James Robertson Justice is alive and well - apparently. How dreadful.

I have just had a dental, rather than medical emergency and, by pure chance, chose a hugely civilised, thoughtful, kind, couteous dental surgeon who was prepared to explain what he was doing and treated me as an intelligent person not just as a nasty tooth.

I do understand that patients can be stupid, ignorant and often scared but I really don't think that is any excuse for rudeness or being dismissive. Mr Consultant you may be at the peak of your career, but it is quite likely that some of your patients are at the peak of theirs. Theirs may even be more demanding than yours, but even if they aren't, you have no right to be dismissive and rude because you are not doing what your are esupposed to be do, i.e. not even at base camp, let alone the peak.