To us, everything is wrong about the way in which the medical profession in New South Wales and Australia is organised in that, if you and I have a question, (1) very little guidance is available as to who might be best able answer to answer it, (2) when we decide on someone to try, invariably, even if they have an appointment system, which most of them don’t, we are involved in some sort of travelling and waiting around, and, (3) if what we’re told is rubbish, there’s very little we can do about it, because, (a) we don’t have what they’ve told us in writing, and (b) even if we did, no one cares – such as those in management, fellow doctors, doctors in professional organisations, and those in organisations that are supposed to regulate the health care professions. All of this, even though we might have only one question!
We have not the slightest doubt that this system will become superseded, and soon. And we believe we know how.
There’ll be ordinary email addresses we can use to ask questions, and if we use them to ask questions we’ll get back answers in writing. And unless there are monument changes in the medical profession, these email addresses won’t be “manned” by doctors. (At present a lot of our information comes from journalists.)
The medical profession will fight tooth and nail to retain the system that’s been around for a thousand years whereby we prospective patients have to traipse from doctor to doctor with very little idea of whose good at what, getting advice that’s never in writing and often wrong.
We going to send this question around to a few emails and see how we get on – we’ll let you know.
From about 22 May 2016, (after having a “flu shot” on 15 April,) I started developing the worst attack of the flu I’ve had in my whole life, and to a certain extent I’ve still got it, 6 weeks later! Does this indicate that I’ve got an impaired immune system? One of my friends, who’s about 40, says that she knows lots of people, presumably about her age, who are having a similar experience – perhaps it’s a particular “bug” that’s around?