Rapid Responses to:
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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Investigation of symptoms thought to be psychological
- John Salmon (19 August 2001)
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Pity the poor patient
- Pat Davis (24 August 2001)
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Perpetuating the Stigma of mental illness
- Sundar Santhanam (25 August 2001)
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John Salmon, Partner in general practice Southmead Surgery, Blackpond Lane, Farnham Common, Bucks SL2 3ER
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As a GP I often deal with patients who have unexplained symptoms. My 30 years experience as a doctor have taught me that a small but significant proportion of these patients will eventually turn up with pathology. In the light of this experience I always say to myself that one should never be certain that a symptom is psychological, even in a well known frequent attender, because every now and then one will be astounded. In most instances investigations will prove fruitless but to avoid a major error, which will happen only very occasionally, symptoms have to be taken at their face value. If it is tolerable to miss the occasional pathology then numerous investigations could be avoided but few would consider this acceptable in the present climate. I have always thought that many of these frequent attenders are unhappy people and as a result are more prone to illness. |
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Pat Davis, Thyroid Group Helper home
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Patronising is the word for the attitude adopted by far too many doctors and consultants alike they seem to have great difficulty looking beyond the end of their nose or past a set of blood tests Just what happened to looking for Clinical signs dont they teach that anymore in med school Blood tests simply are not the B all and end all of medicine that Doctors like to think they are and far too many truly sick people are dropping through the net Equally the insistance that certain drugs are perfect copies of a natural process is nonsense I notice that now packages of Thyroxin only state "Thyroxine sodium BP although synthetic is similar to the natural thyroid hormone in your body " Before it was "Thyroxine is IDENTICAL to the natural Thyroid hormone " Its no wonder therefore that so many Hypothyroid patients do not feel well no matter how much thyroxine they take or how perfect their blood results are . Are drug companies at last running scared of what thousands of patients have been saying and questioning for years that the Natural dessicated Thyroid which used to effectively be used before they foisted a grandfathered drug onto a gullible medicle profession is better than their synthetic imitation The fact that so many Thyroid patients are also Chemically sensitive/allergic is never even considered in the equation and the rush to say " Your blood tests are OK so you must feel OK " The entire medical profession is doing patients a grave miservice by their reliance on blood tests and synthetic chemical drugs instead they should be standing back and realising very very few patients actually drag themselves to the doctors for the fun of it and just maybe there really is something wrong or the symptoms are way ahead of the blood tests and ultimately doctors are left with egg on face and a very distressed patient No wonder so many patients feel forced to sue for failure to diagnose or failure to treat in time |
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Sundar Santhanam, Sp.R Leicester Royal Infirmary
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I can understand the anguish in the letter by a trained psychotherapist. (Anonymous. “Unexplained symptoms may reflect overstretched service”). But she does a great disservice to mental illness by calling it a ‘stigmatising diagnosis’. If she views mental illness as a stigma, how can she reassure the patients worried about the impact of their illness on their social life. |
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