Some GPS are more eager than others…
It was good to learn last week from Dr Richard Vautrey, chairman of the BMA’S general practitioners committee, that during the pandemic, family doctors “have been working tirelessly, at personal cost, to serve their communities”. Still, it is possible that some may be less tireless than others. “Our surgery might as well have a barbed-wire fence around it with a sign saying Keep Out,” writes one correspondent to this paper, lamenting its only mode of contact is by telephone.
The telephone is, of course, a wonderful invention, but it does require somebody at the other end to pick it up – hence the frustration of an acquaintance who, having held on for 45 minutes on five consecutive days, finally resorted to dropping a letter by hand into the surgery requesting an urgent review of her medication. She later received a note suggesting she phone the surgery (!) to make an appointment for a phone consultation with her doctor.
This contrasts with the experience of a Devon reader who, having suffered minor injuries falling off his bicycle, reports passing through the entire medical system (NHS 111 – Devon Doctors – Covid tests – GP) “in a timely manner: at every level the person I dealt with was friendly, sympathetic, businesslike and efficient”.
Those who might wish to cheer themselves up in these difficult times with an entertaining account of how general practice used to be should read Dr Christopher Hopkins’s Recollections of a Southwold GP. Besides twice daily surgeries, home visits and being on call every other weekend, Dr Hopkins was kept busy delivering babies, supervising patients in the local cottage hospital, interpreting X-rays, administering anaesthetics and suturing wounds in its small operating theatre. Tireless indeed.
Lunar daydreams
The curiosity of the woman sleepless on the night of a full Moon has predictably prompted much interest, the general opinion being that the problem is not so much insomnia per se but a state of heightened arousal, similar to mania, that prevents sleep. “My brain is hyper-excited,” writes one reader. “I sleep fitfully and the following day everything seems urgent as I dash from doing one thing to another, none of them properly.” Others describe being variously “fidgety”, “restless” or “as if having overdosed on caffeine” while the few hours of sleep they may catch are associated with particularly vivid (and memorable) dreams.
This correlation of the sleep cycle with phases of the Moon has been attributed to the influence of the Moon’s gravitational pull on the body’s cells. The physical forces involved are generally thought to be too weak, though a German biophysicist, in experiments on plants, has recently demonstrated it is sufficient to cause water molecules (and humans are 75 per cent water) to move across cell membranes – which could conceivably alter the electrical conductivity of the brain’s neurons.
Groin discomfort
This week’s query comes courtesy of Mr N A from Kent in his early 70s and “generally fit” other than discomfort in the left groin when sitting which, at different times, feels like a small ball, a rod or tight band between the top of the leg and scrotum. He consulted an orthopaedic surgeon who could find nothing amiss but
On call: but not all doctors are proving easy to get hold of at the moment
despite several sessions with a skilled osteopath, the discomfort persists. He would appreciate any thoughts.
Perry and the parrot
I am forever grateful to the late, great Sir Peregrine Worsthorne for recruiting me as medical correspondent to The Sunday Telegraph back in 1986. It was disconcerting when I learnt that, after stepping down from the editorship, he was undergoing tests for some mysterious illness. But, true to form, his affliction turned out to be the rare and exotic psittacosis, a bacterial infection contracted from birds. The culprit was almost certainly a parrot that had nipped Sir Perry at a party to launch his wife Lucinda Lambton’s book Magnificent Menagerie: Or, Queer Pets and Their Goings-on. Thankfully, psittacosis is treatable with antibiotics and Sir Perry lived for another 25 years to enhance with his wit and charm the lives of all those lucky enough to have known him.
The telephone is, of course, a wonderful invention, but it does require somebody to pick it up