Estimated reading time at 200 wpm: 4 minutes
Well, I do spend time on forums as some know to wrestle with parts of human nature that some totally avoid. Today I am led to infer that the reading ability of doctors in some significant proportion could be stuck at around UK year 9, based on the captioned encounter below.
Whether or not you agree our Fat Disclaimer applies
This post is not designed to be read on a mobile phone. Tablet or better is recommended.
The situation
As usual, those who do not like thinking should leave now – and not read more of this post.
Some will be wondering what is the text? It’s in the public domain. Focalism may set in, as to what was the original post being responded to. That’s totally irrelevant. What is relevant is readability of the following text, and the the ‘crowd’s response’ to it. Some had difficulty and I responded “I am not responsible for deficiencies of the crowd“. The following was the respose to the OP that caused difficulty with comprehension.
“Tomorrow he’s asked me to go do a home visit by myself to a care home to assess a lady for dementia. He won’t be seeing her tomorrow or any time soon. Is this appropriate for me to do?”
My comments are opinion and not advice to you. In the captioned situation every doctor in the land is obliged to ensure they do not exceed their level of competence (by none other than the GMC).
If any doctor – with their own reasons, has valid concerns about that, then they need to speak up (so says the GMC).
Any doctor delegating to another person needs to ensure that the delegation is appropriate and safe (so says the GMC). There are specific standards for senior doctors.
“Is it okay for me to go on a home visit alone?“
Any doctor attending to a patient on their own has a duty to themselves to ensure the integrity of their practice is not called into question. Some doctors believe that chaperones are only for ‘intimate examinations’ – they need to speak with their defence body and the BMA. Others will say “Chaperone? Good luck with that!” The GMC will say – as they have said, “It can also apply to any examination where it is necessary to touch or be close to the patient.” Some doctors are unaware that a community assessment with or without a mental state examination, is an examination.
Trusts normally have very clear policies on long working and all workers are meant to have trained for long working – AFAIK. Policies are there primarily to protect Trusts. Not reading policies is not an excuse for not knowing.
Trusts are responsible for the Health & Safety of workers at work. In one particular Trust (that was good) I was provided with small device (roughly 3 cm x 2 cm) that had a sim and GPS, connecting to a central monitoring station – for use in the community. One long press led to a live person listening and then sending police on blue lights, if necessary. It was possible to speak with central ‘command’ in two-way conversation. [See here for more]
Beware of crowd sentiment. The crowd often doesn’t know what they’re talking about – they just pick up things on the grapevine (aka social media). Those who follow crowds blindly often end up at the bottom of a cliff – like the proverbial lemmings.
Help yourselves to the thumbs down button.
What does it mean?
I’ve written about ‘reading’ and ‘comprehension’ before on this blog. See here. The point is that the above exchanges confirm a few things in my mind:
- Social media has caused a dumbing down of reading and comprehension ability.
- As a result, people in general – including health professionals – find it more effortful to read and think.
- I’ve now been told that I sound like ChatGPT. That’s probably because people are rediscovering what flowing prose, grammatical structure and good vocabulary is about from the likes of ChatGPT.
