‘I thought I was seeing a GP not a physician associate – a week later I was in A&E’

22 comments

1. There’s a reason we don’t have pilots associates flying airplanes

2. Idk how anyone can get them confused they tell you who they are: also any GP can make mistakes also that can end up with bad results.

3. This is not a surprise.

   I have been saying for ages PAs are useless and downright dangerous.

4. Not a surprise, earlier this year I developed quite a violent rash on my legs, never had anything like it before. Got an appointment with an associate and she basically said I had excema and to go home and moisture

   24 hours later the rash has got a lot worse and is across my chest and and shoulders and my lungs feel weird.

   Got sent to the same PA and she tried the same treatment, I was pretty insistent (and made to feel like i being difficult) and they eventually conceded to getting a GP for a second opinion.

   GP had one look at me and a listen to my chest and gave her a complete WTF look. Long story short I was having a very violent allergic reaction and if she hadn’t spotted it and got me antibiotics immediately there is a decent chance I’d have been struggling to breathe late that night and in a lot more serious trouble.

   Hate to think how many people are too meek/polite to stand up for themselves and are sent on their way.

5. ‘A week later I was in A&E’ Considering people attend A&E for ridiculous reasons, that is not as surprising as the headline intends it to sound.

   Not to mention, isn’t the natural next step up after seeing a GP, going to A&E most of the time anyway?

6. I have a lifelong condition that requires biannual check ups. One with doctor one with nurse. Last nurse appointment I had an HCA who needed me to spell out the names of all my medications.

7. They should be required to finish every sentence with “…but I’m not a doctor”

8. The NHS doesn’t have the integrity to use them properly.

   They are being used as cheap labour in roles they shouldn’t be doing

   Just in reading alone one has killed a patient and another core biopsied a liver instead of a kidney

9. Brutally frank argument – we can’t afford the NHS we actually want or am I being uncharitable? And yes some of the people in here right making critical remarks about this are probably against Junior Doctors getting a pay rise lmao 🤣

10. The government is doing this on purpose. No matter Labour or Conservative, they’re all about making the NHS worse so people will go to private healthcare. You think it would be common sense that you go to a GP and see an actual GP. I honestly question where our taxes are going!

11. The NHS is falling apart. I went to A&E after a motorcycle accident and having one side of my ribcage fractured from top to bottom. Waited for 4 hours in agony and barely able to breathe. Finally got a CT scan and the attending gave me two over the counter co codamol and told me to go home and rest. Went home, started to feel like I was suffocating at 4 am, couldn’t get an ambulance as it was a 12 hour wait. Had to get a lift back to A&E where they checked my blood oxygen and ended up in a hospital bed on a shitload of morphine for 6 days.

12. They’re often morons in my experience. I took my 85 year old father to the GP to highlight that he’s getting a load of side effects from his prostate cancer treatment. I had done the research, correlated the symptoms, and worked out what bloods we needed in order to build a compensatory supplement plan. One of these physician associates rolled his eyes when I tried to accelerate the process by explaining it all clearly to him and instead made referrals to three different departments for symptoms which were all caused by one therapy, and documented as such.

    (Edited for spelling)

13. Ok let’s clear up something GP s are private companies contracted to the NHS and there is a fair number of chains now often American owned who have chosen to go down this dubious route of employing only doctors to oversea the associates to increase profits for the private company. So check and see if your GP is a traditional partnership of doctors or part of a large company as your more likely to see a doctor in a traditional partnership run practice

14. Is there a way we can make sure whether we are seeing a GP or a PA? What is the qualification of a physician associate? Isnt this dangerous? 

15. I had an infected horsefly bite a week ago.

    Sent in a picture of a dark purple bite, with dark purple lumps around it, yellowing skin around it, and a spreading redness to the skin.

    Got told it was probably an allergic reaction, and to come back if the redness spread. (It had already spread.)

    Ignoring that the same fly got me on my other foot, and that’d barely reacted.

    Went in to the pharmacist who took one look at it, and went “Oh” and gave me antibiotics. By that point the redness was over most of my foot. Could barely walk.

    There’s no way it’s not done serious damage to people.

16. Tbf both I, and lots of people I know can say the same about doxtors, are there any stats on this? 

17. Reminds me when I went in for an ultrasound to diagnose a lump to see if it was cancer or not and when I got in there it was some kid being guided by a more experienced member of staff.. like really ? I might have cancer and you’re letting some trainee do the scan?

18. I had one of those faux drs swear blind you don’t need to eat gluten to test for celiac. Her experience on the gastro ward of a hospital was what she told me made her an expert on it. I told her to Google it once I’d left her office and she would see she was absolutely wrong.

19. Wouldn’t just blame this on PAs, I know quite a few people who repeatedly went to the GP got a basic diagnosis from them only to have then got a cancer diagnosis after they attended A&E because there problem keep getting worse.

20. Has anyone in this thread actually read the linked article? It is a complete dumpster fire and doesn’t add anything to the PA discussion.

21. So much misinformation here.

    PAs are highly qualified. GPs and Doctors have always been over celebrated in this country. It’s a medical opinion, nothing more.

    We need all the help we can get – PAs, Nurses etc – all fantastic and I hope they don’t buy into the misinformed negativity here.

22. Fufk me im glad I didn’t train as a PA.

    The pressure on them seems immense in recent weeks.

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