BMJ  2003;327:916 (18 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7420.916-a

Commentary

mother's view

Rita Sharma, clinical lecturer1

1 Department of Primary Health Care, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford OX3 7LF rita.sharma@publichealth.oxford.ac.uk

Elisabeth's mother with the support of Rita Sharma

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

As an anaesthetist, the skewed population that I see professionally could lead me to misinterpret symptoms in myself or my family and leap to conclusions about their cause. I find it particularly difficult to decide when to seek medical advice for my daughter.

When she was first unwell we thought it was just another viral illness caught from nursery. The frequency (once or twice a month) of her rashes, temperatures, or episodes of conjunctivitis meant that their main implication had become the stressful decision about who would have to take a day off work, letting down either several classes of children or an operating list. There were three days for her to improve before she would need to go to nursery again as my mother had come up for Elisabeth's birthday and was able to stay and look after her on the Friday.

It must sound uncaring, but we were . . . [Full text of this article]


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