Rant over!

The role of medical bloggers;

Contempt

“Any material written by authors......as doctors......may reasonably be taken to represent the views of the profession more widely”

In my last post I criticised this statement by the GMC as baseless. Perhaps though what they are really afraid of is that bloggers are actually expressing the majority view of the rank & file of the medical profession. Particularly in areas such as revalidation, where there is no doubt that most of us are opposed to the concept. 

And as for the GMC itself. Other bloggers, and I have been openly critical of the GMC and with good reason, as explained here. And talking to my colleagues I am in no doubt that contempt of the GMC is felt by a considerable majority of doctors. If anyone at the GMC is reading this, it's not just us bloggers who disrespect and despise you. Most doctors think you're a bunch of cunts!

GMC talks out of it's arse

GMC guidance for social media, extract from para 17.

“Any material written by authors......as doctors......may reasonably be taken to represent the views of the profession more widely”

What utter, complete, unsubstantiated, unsupported and unevidenced bollocks! And even if it were true, so fucking what! I know the GMC thinks that the law doesn't apply to them when it comes to tyrannising the medical profession but perhaps they should read this before they start issuing threats to doctors who dare to express their opinion.

Threatening behavior

“Criminal threatening (or threatening behavior) is the crime of intentionally or knowingly putting another person in fear of imminent injury. "Threat of harm generally involves a perception of injury...physical or mental damage...act or instance of injury, or a material and detriment or loss to a person.”

GMC Guidance for social media paragraph 18

“You should be aware that content uploaded anonymously can, in many cases, be traced back to it's point of origin.”

Anonymity

Apparently the new GMC "good medical practice" guidelines state “if you identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should also identify yourself by name”.
I don't know if they regard a blog as "social media" but I would guess that they want anonymous bloggers to identify who they are.
As far as Zorro is concerned they can fuck right off.

The rot continues

JD is currently bemoaning the state of affairs in general practice, but it's no better in hospitals either. I've recently been talking to a friend & colleague. He specialises in a condition that is refractory and chronic and many of his patients have seen him many times over several years. His patients, on average require eight follow up appointments before he either achieves some sort of objective, or runs out of ideas. Until recently no one told him how often he could see patients or keep them on his books. He, as the professional made the decision as to whether or not to get them back.

All that has changed. He has now been instructed that he can see a patient for a maximum of three appointments only, and then they MUST be discharged back to primary care. And the appointments they do have will have to be with a specialist nurse in an increasing proportion. That means that many of his patients he will have to discharge before he can achieve anything, and they will return to their GP in effect untreated. The management don't give a shit. They are only interested in "processing" the patients through the system so they can get their money from the PCT. The fact that these peoples' medical problem will not have been addressed does not matter to them. The idea is that if the patient still requires specialist care he will have to be referred again and the Trust can then charge the PCT again, for the patient just to be seen by some overfed harpie who calls herself a consultant but knows fuck all about it.

So what is he going to do about it. He's taking early retirement.

Quote

"The rules were a wee bit different then (1980).................as to what we did with allegations of child sex abuse 20 or 30 years ago.................our attitude to child sex abuse has changed"

Cardinal Keith O'Brian

Actually cardinal that's not true of most of us. We've always been appalled and revulsed by such behaviour, and of predatory, hypocritical cunts like you who admit a hankering for the old days when you used to get away with it.

Busy

Regular followers of my blog will have noticed a sharp fall off in the number of posts since I retired from the NHS and may be wondering why. Perhaps I've spent the last few months in deep depression, or a drunken stupor now that I have lost my purpose in life. Or maybe I just don't care about the NHS any more or no longer have the experiences that provide the raw material.

No!

The truth is that since I have retired I have been so fucking busy with the things I want to do that I don't seem to have the time to blog. I have ever growing "to do" lists and there are not enough hours in the day. I had toyed with the idea of doing a little agency work, but I don't know how I could fit it in.

So those of you approaching retirement, (JD?) if you think you are in for a life of leisure, think again.