Most of my experience with hospitals has been with various ENT departments. I have met some lovely doctors in that department, but the consultants with whom I have had most experience certainly lived down to the arrogant reputations that far too many consultants have. The first was by far the worst. I first saw him when I was around four. My mother had taken me to the hospital by bus and my younger brother, who was around eighteen months old at the time, was with us as my dad was at work. When we went into the consulting room, his first words, barked at a very high volume, were: “if that’s not the patient, get him out.” My poor mother had to take my brother out and the long-suffering receptionist looked after him. We saw many red-faced mothers running out of his room with younger brothers or sisters of the patient. The receptionists were expected to act as unpaid babysitters by the consultant. On that occasion, he had fiddled around in my ear then wanted to look in it again. Very uncharacteristically for me because I was a stoical child (as was generally encouraged anyway at that time (very late sixties)), I started to get very upset and refused to let him look in it. He, of course, became very impatient and barked at my mother to make me behave. My mother stuck up for me, saying that the ear was probably very painful. Eventually, in 1975 when I was ten, I had my first mastoidectomy, which is major surgery and he was the surgeon. He was a brilliant surgeon, as was acknowledged by future doctors and consultants who saw my ear. It didn’t solve the problems completely and l often had ear infections - even on my wedding day I had cotton wool in my ear as I was using ear drops for yet another infection. In 2010, l had a second mastoidectomy, but this time the consultant rebuilt my middle ear with tiny plastic bones and made a new eardrum with a skin graft. He was one of the pioneers in this type of surgery and surgeons from all over the world came to learn from him. I know l was very lucky but, while being nowhere near as rude as the first consultant, was still distinctly lacking in his bedside manner. One note that he wrote for my next appointment showed exactly how he thought of himself - he wrote to be seen by Mr. X Himself! After his retirement, l saw another consultant. He was mumbling to me while looking at his computer, which was at a right angle to me. I am much more confident these days and politely but firmly said that as I am deaf, he would need to face me. The ENT department of all departments!
I had a friend who was a nurse at this hospital and she told me that the consultants had all been made to go on courses to improve their bedside manner. Apparently, one man had been repeating the course for six months as he kept failing it.
Finally, Tony Atwood, who is an expert on the Autistic Spectrum, said that consultant surgeons were by far the highest group of professionals who were on the spectrum.
