If you’re really ill, I’d assume you’d be pleased to see anyone with medical training irrespective of their age (or indeed nationality).

Report abuse

I am a Student Nurse and think that these “young” doctors need to get their experience from some where. After all, the “experienced” doctors are entitled to a retirement at some point and it will be the “young” doctors that take on their roles and responsibilites. Maybe it is in our interest to seek advice from “young” doctors as many of them are up to date with evidence based research and more modern effective treatments.

Report abuse

But a doctor does not need to know you in order to treat you, urgent or not. They have your medical history up on the screen in front of them when you walk into their surgery.

Being an older/more experienced doctor does not necessarily equate to a better doctor, and in fact, the ‘new young doctor’ may well have more up-to-date knowledge of the condition the patient is attending for than any other doctor in the practice.

They’ve all had to qualify in order to practise medicine – and if the newly qualified doctors don’t have the opportunity to treat and advise those requiring immediate attention, how on earth do they acquire the experience in the first place? In twenty years time, these new doctors will be the experienced old hands but they’re no good to us if they’ve only ever dealt with chronic conditions!

Report abuse

And a young doctor knows all very well to refer the case to his/her senior if he’s unsure of the appropriate course of action to take.

I have seen a number of “foreign” doctors, but none of those had a “poor grasp of english”.

Report abuse

I’m a little worried and wanted to know if anyone could help me out here. I applied my husbands removal of conditions but under certain circumstances we are having to move. I moving end of June and I’m worried if the address change will update and I will receive paperwork for the condition removal on my new address.

Report abuse

I like to see my designated GP but if he isn’t available I don’t mind seeing someone else.

After nearly half a century of visiting doctors I have always agreed to students/newly qualified doctors seeing me … after all how will they become experienced if they are turned away by patients just because they are young or newly qualified?

I know I am getting older and a lot of doctors, like policemen, are getting younger ;)but that doesn’t mean they are not as able as our older, more established GPs.

Sorry Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous, you are way out of order!

Report abuse

With not even a figleaf of public consultation, the Shropshire primary care trust (soon to abolished) has selected Ludlow as a training centre for general practitioners.

Of course, no one is against the idea that doctors need training. But it’s a question of where that training should take place, and the type of patientbase on whom doctors should be trained.

It just isn’t sensible to concentrate a large group of trainee doctors on a tiny little town like Ludlow, located as it is in the back of beyond and more than 50 miles from the affiliate medical school in Stafford.

For the rural nature of this environment, South Shropshire residents suffer surprisingly bad health. The health demographics of the area reveal an aged population, with poverty, smoking, drugs and poor nutrition taking their toll through life-shortening disease. Gealth authority statistics bear out those facts.

As such, complex health issues are common for patients in this area. Managing and treating complex health conditions at GP level demands clinical competence that can only come through experience. The oversight of this industrial-scale training and the burden this would place on a small rural practice is unacceptable.

On health grounds alone, it was always a foolish idea to select Ludlow as a centre for GP training.

Furthermore, the primary care trust, again without any true consultation with the general public, announced it is to rehouse the town’s two GP practices into a single surgery some three miles out of town.

The remote siting of this new clinic on the wastelands of the empty Eco Park will cause
considerable inconvenience for both patients and staff alike, many of whom will be forced to find their own ways of reaching the new site, since public transport is very limited.

And more: after a secret closed-door deal, the primary care trust has announced its funding of a conversion programme for a redundant former school in the town. The old school building on Lower Galdeford, we are told, will be turned into blocks of dormitories to house incoming cohorts of trainee doctors who are sent to the town.

This planning decision is bizarre on several grounds.

The new dormitories will not be within walking distance of the new surgery that is planned for the out of town site. The student doctors will either have to drive, or be driven to their isolated place of training.

Furthermore, in this day and age and in a town that brags of its hospitality, the housing of doctors, albeit student doctors, in 12-bed dormitories in a redundant Victorian school, is a clear throwback to Dickensian living.

Today’s student doctors will expect much better. On discovering their sub-standard living conditions in Ludlow will be deeply disappointed and inclined to seek training elsewhere.

Lastly, the decision to grant public funds to the Church of England to breath life into its ailing property estate is unacceptable. If the building is to be renovated and converted by the taxpayer for any public use, then it should be taken officially into taxpayer ownership.

In these difficult economic times, there is little rationale for forcing the taxpayer to bankroll these extravagant and thoroughly ill-conceived ventures.

Before the PCT gets the axe, it should go away, put on its thinking cap, and come up with some sensible ideas for modern healthcare in Ludlow.

Report abuse

My confidence in any kind of doctor was seriously dented when I repeatedly presented with classic gall bladder failure symptoms. A series of doctors, young and old, experienced and not very so, failed to diagnose this condition. Eventually, turning yellow and armed with a page printed from the NHS-Direct website – and totally self diagnosed – I was able to convince the medical profession that I was in very poor condition. My gall bladder blew up the next day and if I hadn’t more or less forced myself into hospital, the consequences would have been serious.

It’s a poor show when a patient has to tell the doctors what’s wrong with him, armed only with an NHS Direct diagnosis sheet.

Yes, I complained, but the complaint was politely brushed aside – they clearly wasn’t interested in it.

Report abuse

Oh yes, nearly forgot, based upon the contents of this letter. I would suggest this person lives in Bridgnorth!

Report abuse

Shurrup letter writer. You’re lucky we still have a free health service and don’t have to go to the doctors with your cheque book held out in front on you!

Talk about whining!

Report abuse