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General practice: a religious experience

Is there really room for a crucifix in the consulting room? Though the K Hole investigates

Geoffrey, a family doctor and committed Christian says: 'I often use my faith as a tool to motivate and inspire my patients.'

'Whenever one of them is tempted to whinge on at me about their suffering I just point to a picture of Jesus and say, listen, they hammered nails into that poor sod and he didn't witter on about it and he certainly didn't ask for a sick line, in fact he dusted himself down and got on with it, he even went as far as resurrecting himself, now that's what I call pro-active! I've found that this produces a mixed response.'

One of his patients says: 'To be honest I'm not entirely convinced that a discussion about Jesus had anything to do with my hernia, unless Jesus had a hernia! I don't remember the Messiah ever wearing a truss though do you?'

A colleague who Geoffrey openly refers to as a heretic in practice meetings says: 'I realised that I maybe wasn't providing what many of my patients were looking for. So when I had a house call to an old lady with rigors and a pneumonia I decided to use the religious approach. Instead of getting her into the hospital for fluids and IVs I decided to throw some holy water over her. Anyway it all went a bit mental, it was bit like the scene from the f*cking exorcist! Never again!'

A lot of medicine is about faith and a former addict from Crawley explains: 'I was struggling to make the right choices in life and I was looking for some kind of spiritual guidance from my GP not just a methadone script and a patronising GMC approved smile. But I was getting nowhere fast. Then one night right after I swallowed fifty Russian blues and took an enormous hit from my crack pipe I saw him, God I mean, not my GP. He appeared all shimmery, a bit like a massive Cheryl Cole glistening all over with gold, only better. I haven't looked back since.'

Abigail, a three year old sceptic says: 'The GMC may well be right but if we truly leave Christianity behind then human history has no real meaning. And in a nihilistic society where God has been killed off by anti-humanistic thought, each generation will be forced to reinvent him out of philosophical necessity. And in this day and age who could possibly replace God?.....I suggest Iggle Piggle.'

Satan, a confirmed aethiest, who ends every sentence with an evil laugh says: 'I do hope the GMC gets its way and banishes God from the consulting room, but to be honest most of my work has already been done. Your children are all fat and depressed and I swear to God that had nothing to do with me.'

He goes on to explain: 'The other day I was taking a wander up to my local surgery where I had an appointment to give my horns the once over when I bumped into a lumbering ball of a man who smelt of diabetic ulcers and lasagne. I was appalled, I mean you have to go back to a 13th century pox outbreak to find anything similar.'

In an exclusive interview for Pulse, God says: 'Blind faith in things for which there is not a single shred of evidence is what it's all about, evidence-based medicine is clearly the work of the devil'. He ended the interview by saying, 'Can you doctors down there do anything about my corns? These sandals are killing my bloody feet!'

Geoffrey, who has been forced to accept that insulin isn't made from baby-Jesus-tears, says: 'When all the diabetics die they will be welcomed into the enormous pancreas in the sky where they will be able to eat as many cupcakes and chocolate hob-nobs as they like. Until that day comes they must endure their suffering to atone for the fact that they were all honey bees in a former life.'

Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Aberdeen

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