We are constantly being told what a marvellous health care system we have in NSW/Australia, especially by the medical professional organisations like the Australian Medical Association, in particular how great all our GPs are.
(We’re not sure what they’re saying about the fact that it’s being estimated that over 350 patients a week die in Australia from medical errors and 1,000 a week suffer permanent injury from them.)
The fact is that in all likelihood 50% or more of what doctors, particularly GPs, tell us is rubbish. And the administration people in the practice in which they work don’t care – in more than 8 years in working on how to see the best doctors and avoid those who are perhaps not so good, we’re yet to find one that does. And neither do the medical professional organisations referred to above. And governments and the organisations that are supposed to regulate the health care professions really don’t either. We have to look after ourselves. How do we do that?
One of the best ways is this. After you’ve seen a doctor for the first time for whatever reason, send them a letter by email saying something like this – “In my consultation with you today I understood you to have told me blah blah blah, blah blah blah. Have I understood you correctly?” If they won’t respond in an appropriate manner to an email like this, you know they are not the sort of person who is going to stand by anything that they say or do, and you shouldn’t go back. And if they do, you can get “second opinions,” on what they’ve told you, if you have any doubts.
And, all things being equal, if they haven’t got an ordinary email address readily available, you shouldn’t have seen them in the first place.
If you go to this previous post, you will see that such an email was sent to Dr Hani Tawk yesterday, (on 16 Aug 2016.) Our reader couldn’t find an ordinary email address for Dr Tawk but used the ordinary email address of the manager of his practice to send it, and got a very nice email back saying he’d passed it on to Dr Tawk. We’re awaiting Dr Tawk’s response.
Of course, in this case we already know that what Dr Tawk said was complete rubbish. Perhaps he’ll deny that he said it?