Benjamin Daniels - Confessions of a British Doctor

Table of Contents

Title Page BENJAMIN DANIELS Confessions of a British Doctor

Disclaimer Disclaimer Dr Benjamin Daniels is the pseudonym of a doctor currently working for the NHS. The events described in this book are based on my experiences as a new doctor. For obvious reasons of privacy and confidentiality I have made certain changes, altered identifying features and fictionalized some aspects, but it remains an honest reflection of life as a young doctor in Britain today. This is what it’s like. These things really happen!

Who am I?

Introduction

Mrs Peacock

Tom Jones

First day

Jargon

Proud to work for the National Health Service (NHS)

Drug reps

Mr Tipton, the paedophile

Average day

Tara

Sex in the doctors clinic

The elderly

Bums

Julia

Good doctors

Connor

Janine

Saving lives

Kirsty, the trannie

‘It’s my boobs, Doc’

Mr Hogden

Small talk

Notes

Ten minutes

Alf

Meningitis

Uzma

Africa

Evidence

Carolina

Lee

Hugging

Tough Life Syndrome

Mrs Briggs

Betty Bale’s cat

Vaccines

Darryl

The pat dog

Rina

Dos and don’ts

Home births

Michael

Alternative medicine

Thai bride

Dead people

Holistic earwax

Dr Arbury

Body fluids

Racism

Sleep

Magic wand

Cannabis

Mistakes … I’ve made a few

The near miss

The cockup but arse covered

The cockup and up shit creek

Dying

Happy pills

Top 1 per cent of the population

Kieran

Peter

Granny dumping

Ed

Camouflage man

Memories

Fighting

Tingling ear syndrome

Gary

Beach medicine

Gifts

Passing judgement

The examination game

Sex

Angela

I don’t like some of my patients

Boundaries

Angry man

Maintaining interest

Tariq

Babies

Why do people get sick?

A pair of glasses

Stewart

Barry

Royal Wedding

Abortion

Taking Responsibility

France vs UK

The NHS is brill

My patients are brill

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Dr Benjamin Daniels is the pseudonym of a doctor currently working for the NHS.

The events described in this book are based on my experiences as a new doctor. For obvious reasons of privacy and confidentiality I have made certain changes, altered identifying features and fictionalized some aspects, but it remains an honest reflection of life as a young doctor in Britain today. This is what it’s like. These things really happen!

Humans have a universal desire to be listened to and share their stories of pain and suffering. My job as a doctor is to listen to those stories. Sometimes I interject with some suggestions or medications, but more often I am simply a passive observer of the soap operas that are people’s lives. With regular appointments, I watch the characters develop and the narratives unfold. Although some of my patients have an over inflated view of my significance, I really am just a walk-on part in their lives. I’m like an extra in a soap opera who tries his best to play a small role in one or two of the storylines, but in reality rarely affects the progress of the plot or the big ending. The advantage I do have is that I get to watch the story unfold from a unique and fascinating angle. Being a doctor gives me a privileged insight into the more private and often bizarre aspects of human life and, with that in mind, let me share some slices of my working life with you.

I love my job and have no regrets about choosing to become a doctor and then specialize as a primary care physician. This is quite fortunate really, as my decision to study medicine was made as I chose my school exam subjects at the tender age of 16¼. At this time my only real reservation against becoming a doctor was the knowledge that I would have to endure studying chemistry. I couldn’t really think of any other reason why I shouldn’t be a doctor. What could be better than swanning around a hospital full of beautiful nurses and ‘saving lives’? People would think I was great and ultimately this would lead to me finally getting a girlfriend. As an awkward 16-year-old with bad skin and greasy hair, most of my career aspirations were based on what profession would give me the best opportunity of gaining me some interest from the opposite sex. I had accepted that my carnal ambitions would ideally be achieved by being in a boy band or playing Premiership football, but unfortunately my lack of talent in both these departments led to the inevitable choice of medicine. I chose a career in medicine in the year that ER first arrived on our screens. A poster of George Clooney in a white coat was on every girl’s wall. Of course I wanted to be a doctor!

On my university application form, I had the good sense to not write that I wanted to be a doctor so I could ‘save lives and hence get laid’. I scribbled down something about my love of ‘working as part of a team’ and my ‘fascination with human sciences’. To be fair, I suppose these statements were also true, but it is so hard to pick a career aged 16. The real world of work is always such a mystery until you enter it. When my mate Tom applied to teacher-training college, he wrote that he wanted to ‘help young people flourish and fulfill their true potential’. After a five-year tour of duty in an inner city school, like us medics, he is just trying to get to the weekend without being punched or sued.

Although I now work as a family physician, my training required me to spend many long years working as a hospital doctor. I completed five years at medical school and then spent several years working in various hospital posts gaining the experience needed to become a family physician or as we call ourselves in the UK, a General Practitioner (GP). I was a resident doctor in surgery, psychiatry, ER, pediatrics, gynaecology, geriatrics and general medicine. I also broke up my training with a three-month stint working in Mozambique. All in all I loved working as a hospital doctor but have absolutely no regrets about leaving it to work in the community.

I can still fondly recall the first diagnosis I ever made. As with many others that followed, it was spectacularly incorrect, but it still holds a special place in my heart. In my defense, I was just a mere boy at the time, wet behind the ears and only a few weeks into my first term at medical school. I was sitting in the local Kentucky Fried Chicken and spotted a man slumped unconscious in his plastic seat. A wave of excitement flooded over me. This was what it was all about! This was my vocation! With the limitless enthusiasm of youth and inexperience, I bounded over to undoubtedly save his life with my new-found wealth of medical knowledge.

It didn’t take me long to conclude that this gent had suffered from a spontaneous pneumothorax. This was not based on clinical signs and symptoms but more that this was the condition that we had learnt about that morning in a tutorial and so was the first and only diagnosis that sprung to mind. With an air of self-importance, I explained to the KFC manager my diagnosis and instructed him to call urgently for an ambulance. Looking thoroughly unimpressed, he wandered out from behind the counter and roughly manhandled the unconscious man from his seat and threw him out of his restaurant. My first-ever patient spectacularly regained consciousness, uttered a few obscenities addressed to no one in particular and staggered off down the street. The KFC manager in his far superior wisdom had, in fact, made the correct diagnosis of ‘drunk and asleep’ and prescribed him a swift exit from his premises.