Time passes and we ‘see’ things in so many different ways
Next month I am giving a talk to a local rotary club. When asked what I would speak about, I scratched my head and came up with ‘I’ve started, so I’ll finish’ – with no idea really of what that might mean.
But it has got me thinking, so here goes.
In 1973 I joined a local GP practice. Twelve thousand patients, four partners that soon became five, on call one night in five, and two weekends each month too.
We had an appointments system (unusual then) but anybody who wanted to be seen could be. We called them ‘extras’ and they were told to come in at 6pm.
There could be 40 or 50 ‘extras’ even. Appointments were booked at five-minute intervals, this slowly increased over the years to 10 minutes. To see a patient in five minutes was difficult, to say the least.
There was always a large number of home visits, between us 30 to 40 daily with a record during a flu epidemic of 150!
One more set of figures – I hope I am not confusing you – night visits averaged one every other night but 20 years later had increased to two each night. These were get out of bed calls, and you still worked the next day. I am not asking for your sympathy, but it was hard.
Naïve and young, I thought that is how it would always be, it was a good and fulfilling life. I had 3,000 patients, I genuinely knew them and they knew me.
It was almost certainly more difficult for Ann; she had to be at home in the evenings to answer the telephone.
Weekly shopping had to be done by 10.30am on a Saturday, when I was on call to do the same all over again.
Together we saw our patients through coughs and colds to major health and family crises.
You know how different it is today. I was responsible for training and teaching young doctors and I soon became aware that general practice was changing.
I moved from general practice to palliative medicine after 20 years, not because I was unhappy but because I knew that I might be able to make a difference to the care of the dying.
Since then, change has accelerated. We are all living many years longer and we now have many more complex illnesses.
Doctors operate from vast health centres, and many practices have tens of doctors, plus nurses, therapists and counsellors. (Was my practice a trend setter? We worked with practice nurses and counsellors over 50 years ago.) It would be for you to tell me how you find it today, but know this, it will change again, and start but never finish.
PS A huge apology to all of you who work in health care who I have not mentioned. I dedicate this to Miss Lilian Woodcock, our prescription clerk for 50 years ago who laboriously recorded all our prescription requests.
I have written this in Kino Lounge. Everything I see is very blurred. A young man, who I think is totally blind, came and sat on an adjoining table. How fortunate I am, but how life can change, time passes and we ‘see’ things in so many different ways.