Recently someone here complained about a 'dragon receptionist'.
How about this?
My GP receptionist did not understand the word 'ditto'. She has excellent spoken English without an accent, although she seemed to struggle with understanding my records. I got so exasperated that, in the end, I asked her if she understood the meaning of the word 'urgent' (in red in my letter). Oops!
I also learned that the person who fulfills the prescription request forms in the surgery and sends them to the pharmacy is an admin. and not medically trained so far as I could ascertain. They get it wrong more often than they get it right. For example, I requested "Prednisolone 2.5mg 26 tablets, Prednisolone 1mg 120 tablets: they sent 56 at 2.5mg and 13 at 1mg. I can't work out any correlation. Hence I wrote a polite, very clear letter explaining the problem and repeated my request with the word 'EXACTLY'.....but I used the ditto word which completely threw her.
We all know how important it is to get our Pred. doses correct and that we often have to ask for various numbers of different doses as we taper.
The phrase that comes to mind is 'I'm surrounded by fools and idiots' but that would be unkind and not accurate I think.
Apologies for the rant.
Written by
ChinaWuntoo
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Hi CW, I suspect there will be a number of people here who will have suffered similar problems. All the varieties of my Pred come in boxes of 28, so I only ever request them by the number of boxes I need not the number of tablets. It makes it very straightforward and the numbers smaller. Also to be fair, it's not a problem I've had at my surgery who on the whole are excellent. I hope you managed to get what you needed in the end.
I have wondered about that but I suspect that my GP might not understand the figures and my pharmacy have a habit of removing two or three tablets from the box in order to give an exact prescription and that gets untidy. Maybe I'll give it a try with the number of boxes!
I always allow a lot of time for the turnaround. And I do have an 'emergency' box of various dosages.
This time I really thought the GP would ask for an appointment as it is so long since he reviewed the progress of my PMR. I will need to see him soon to talk about an adrenal test.
Me too. Ours also have to have a doctor sign off each prescription and when I started using 1mg pred as directed by the rheumy, they wouldn't let me have it without a doctors appointment first because it wasn't on my prescription (even though they had the letter from rheumy)! Also I have no say in quantities, I just have to ask for a repeat prescription. As I started on 40mg pred I get loads of 5mg tablets each time - I'm now down to 7mg. Mind you I'm happy with that as it's good to have some extra!
I too have no say in quantities, took me quite a while to get GP to stop prescribing 5mg when I'd reduced (by myself) down to 4mg and lower. All done without actually seeing or speaking to my GP.
I too was a doctors receptionist, I loved my work, I really was a very nice receptionist and done my very best for all patients needing to see a doctor or any other queries, it upsets me that so often receptionist get put in a box and called all kind of names, we have to abide by the doctors request, they make the rules of who and when they can see a patient or prescribe prescription .
The majority are very good - and the better the practice, the better the receptionists in general. But some seem to think they know rather more than they do and there have been some very hairy stories from people who couldn't get past one who didn't understand the seriousness of the reported symptoms.
when you say they make the rules of who and when they can see a patient how does this work ,when you go to the surgery and try to make a face to face appointment you can never get to see which doctor you want.
Most of our receptionist are good but, we have one or two who think they are a doctor .
When I first started at this surgery ( 44 years ago) we had the same doctor all the time but, now it seems you have to see any doctor and this gets frustrating as they never seem to read your notes before you go in.
I must admit the times I go to the surgery ,stand in the queue waiting to make an appointment ,the people before me are always complaining about their prescription being wrong .
Maybe the doctors should try being a receptionist and,see what the patients complain about it might help them to understand why so many get angry at them
That's a difficult point to understand. Mine is about 25-30 with easy to understand English (even with my hearing loss) - good language and no accent. I would be surprised if she was not educated in UK. The other receptionist was by her side smiling.
I just send any requests for drugs through patient.co.uk. It is quite easy to write something that I think is easy to understand but is confusing to someone else.
Most surgerys will give out prescriptions for a month or 2 months at a time. I don't think there is any need to ask for exact numbers of each tablet you need. If you keep it simple and ask for complete boxes (normally 28 days for larger doses) it should be easy to maintain your supply with a few in reserve.
This is interesting and explains something. Until a couple of years ago I always had a Canadian doctor of course, and she prescribed quite differently from my new doctor who is from the UK (although I think he trained in Europe). I've found it quite frustrating to have to keep going back for a new prescription when in the past I'd have enough refills for up to a year. Our drugs are not covered by a government plan so that's not a factor.
Very simple here - just the GP in most practices unless the wife works alongside as is the case with one of the two in the village. I call the practice, she answers the phone. If she is too busy to answer the phone, the quickest alternative is to turn up with a book and wait - since we get priority over the phone.
I'm in the USA and if that happened to me here I would have to think it is a generational thing. I don't think I've heard anyone under the age of 50 use the word ditto in decades.
It's a useful word and I'm surprised to hear that. What do people say now? "Right back at ya" or something, which of course wouldn't serve in this context.
Hmm I'm trying to think of what my younger family members say. I know on TV I hear alot of people say "copy that." But at the moment I'm drawing a blank.
It sounds like slang or a colloquialism. However, librarian in me kicked in so I looked it up in the Concise Oxford dictionary I was given back in the 60s and there it is, with an impressive etymology dating back through middle English to Latin (dicere, to say). Trivia for today. You're welcome!🤣
The mistakes with your medication order are gangerous and needs be reported., A non professional yet!
Once I was supposed to receive a certain vaccine in the doctors’ vaccine room. It was a nursing assistant giving out the vaccines. I came in with the script. She opens the refrigerator and takes out a vial. I look at it and it’s the wrong vaccine! It was a childhood one. When I told her this, she said “that was for the last patient.” I wanted to run that very minute and grab my doctor and complain. Alas, he had been in a room examining a patient. When I went home, I wrote the letter and mailed it to him. I understand later she was fired. Can’t be careful enough with medication. Even pharmacist slip up at times. I always look at the vial of a vaccine. I’m going to recieve.
Another time I went to pick up a cream the doctor ordered for a rash, and when I walked away, from the pharmacy, it felt like pills were there instead of anointment. I brought it back to the pharmacy, and the pharmacist was so apologetic; no chance of me using pills on my skin.
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