THE CHILD WITHIN

By Alex Thain
Contact the author by e-mail at info@ardlarich.co.uk

“The man with child in his eyes”
Kate Bush

It was an ordinary day in an ordinary Surgery in the North of Scotland and I was struggling to suppress the child within me. I’m not pregnant (wrong gender) and it had all started when I made the fatal mistake of looking down my Surgery list to see the name of William McGrumpy. Despite my many years of consultation management, this character always managed to push my buttons with his complaining about the wait, “didn’t I know that his son was a consultant?” while his body language bellowed that I should feel it an honour and privilege to treat him. Aye, right, sure…

However when he duly arrived he was almost pleasant, made no reference to the delay although couldn’t resist a mild consultant son reference. I was intrigued and struggled to suppress the petty, mean part of my psyche, which couldn’t wait to find out the real reason for his coming along. The slightly sore throat was simply an aperitif and the mild trapezius pains a mere antipasti. Then, the final main course “have you had feedback on this Viagra stuff then Doc?”

Bingo! Klaxons, bells and whistles sounded simultaneously. While the professional part of me was dealing with his problem, the child was enjoying his discomfort, a sort of consultation shadenfreude*. The child within was certainly embracing the position of power, coming comfortably to rest somewhere between smug and superior. The professional, of course, was exploring ideas, concerns and expectations and formulating a workable shared management plan.

I’m really not very proud of it but I’m sure most of us have been there at some time. I well remember sagely advice from a now retired Doctor in managing “inappropriate” telephone calls through the night. This was in the days before Co-ops, NHS 24 or mobile technology when the calls came directly to your house. Who among us can forget the breakfast flurry, with endless “you’re still through to the Doctor’s house” between porridge and teeth cleaning? I know this remains familiar to many of our rural colleagues and my heart goes out to them. His advice however, was to ring overnight patients back at 7 o’clock in the morning, “just to make sure that they’d settled”- I understand that the point was seldom lost on the patient.

Alternatively, the child within can also be playful and mischievous, breeding some life, humour and humanity into our work.

One of my favourite consultations involves Dod, a stalwart older patient originally from Pennan, a wee fishing village in the North East. Dod and I have a wee game with an unwritten set of rules and no real winners or losers. The aim is to carry out as much of the consultation as possible in Doric and strive to find a seldom-used word or phrase referring to a symptom. The most recent was his “affa host**” as a result of his ACE inhibitor. We both took great delight in Primary School memories of Wordsworth’s “host of golden daffodils” and the Biblical “host of angels” causing untold confusion and mirth the length and breadth of Buchan. For the transactional analysts amongst you, I suppose that it was a simultaneous interaction at both the adult to adult and the child to child levels. Interestingly, both work. I’d like to think that this commonality enhances the consultation experience without compromising his care.

I wonder if my Appraiser speaks Doric…

*Schadenfreude- Taking delight in the discomfort of others. German origin, from Schaden, damage + Freude, joy. (Nothing vaguely Doric)
**Affa- diminutive form of awful
**Host- traditional Doric word for a cough.

Other hoolet online articles by Alex Thain can be found at:
hoolet edition 50 - A Fairy Tale
hoolet edition 49 - A Tale of Two Addicts
hoolet edition 48 - The Supporter
hoolet edition 47 - Cannon Fodder
hoolet edition 46 - The Commercial Imperative Alternative
hoolet edition 46 - The Commercial Imperative Assassin
hoolet edition 45 - A Lateral Thought
hoolet edition 44 - The Watching
hoolet edition 43 - The Child Within
hoolet edition 42 - If Kipling were a GP
hoolet edition 42 - Of Directors, Philosophers and Poets
hoolet edition 40- Of Knees and Knickers
hoolet edition 39- Neighbour meets Norton
hoolet edition 38- Embarrassment
hoolet edition 37- From the Book of Negotiators
hoolet edition 36 - Practice Visit By WH Audit
hoolet edition 35 - The Bells, The Bells. . . .
hoolet edition 34 - Talking Urine
hoolet edition 33 - Reflections on Reggie Perrin
hoolet edition 32 - Myth 1 Logic 1
hoolet edition 31 - Poems
hoolet edition 30 - One Size Fits All
hoolet edition 29 - Downwardly Mobile
hoolet edition 28 - From the mouths of babes
hoolet edition 27 - On Losing Their Child

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.