Patients as friends

I sent a letter to The Times following this statement by Mr Willets - stressing he was supposed to be a `science' minister.
Not printed. Anyway patients can get homeopathic treatments by eating natural foods and then drinking lots of water. ravinder aulakh

I would think your fears about patients being friends quite unfounded doctor. Mr Willets's remarks may not have been scientific, but certainly academic. Robert Bleach

Definition of "friend":
1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement
Under these definitions, our patients are - or at least should be - our "friends". We are intimately acquainted with their problems (although not them with ours - such (thankfully) is the nature of professional boundaries), and we most certainly share a common goal, their good health. Somebody once said that General Practice is the greatest job in the World, wherelse are you paid to see your friends. Friendship implies empathy and caring. Maybe it is a skill we have lost - and are much poorer for as a consequence. Bryan Moore

Superb. To those patients who insist on being prescribed homeopathic treatment you could give a little brown glass bottle of distilled water with instructions to take two drops after each meal. Explain that this is a new, revolutionary treatment (called Aitch-2-O) and see how many get better. Irene Henning

Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Ref The Bible written some time or other Peter Billington

GO MAD- you know it makes sense Peter Billington

This is all part of the "touchy feely" crap being spouted all over the place
There is only good medicine or bad medicine
I strongly am very suspicious of the spouting touchy feely types dig a little and they know ####all.
I did an overnight recently where a touchy feely trainer was with some poor GP registrar and witnessed the endless stream of well patients being referred to hospital 'to be safe' as I heard many times.
Good doctorswith balls don't need patients to be friends but RCGP wimps do DAVID HOGG

I find this utterly amazing. In a time in which we are increasingly being asked to practice evidence-based medicine and our prescribibg choices are being restricted by local guidelines, the NHS continues to waste millions of pounds funding 4 national homeopathic hospitals (Hogwart's Hospitals of Witchcraft & Wizardry as I like to think of them).

If patients want to try alternative medicines that's fine by me, especially if it keeps them out of my office (and does them no harm), but don't expect the NHS to pick up the tab.

As a final warning I wouldn't advise using the answer I gave one of my more 'entitled' patients who wanted something 'like homeopathy' -'Water?' was obviously not the answer she was looking for! Alexander Thornton-Smith

Don't worry David, you're safe Robert Bleach

Nobody should mistake my response as an acquiescence to a request for homeopathic remedies. If the patient choses to take these, that is their right. But there is no science so I will not prescribe them. There is no real conflict between 'touchy-feely' and good evidence-based medicine. The former should be empathy and caring, the latter a useful scientific tool. We do need to guard against acquiescing to unreasonable requests for unproven and potentially harmful 'treatments' - even if they come from Government. Wasteful use of resources such as unnecessary hospital referrals, unproven treatments, etc are, frankly, unethical and unprofessional. What David Hogg descibes is spineless, poor medicine Bryan Moore

I have only ever met one GP who has both medical and homeopatic Qualifications so the majority of GPs would be being asked to prescribe something they have not been trained to do and presumably be expected to take full reponsibilty for doing so. Would they eventually wish me to do craniotomies in the surgery because I have not been trained to do those either but the same principle would apply? You know these stupid politicians - give them an inch etc. If they really do want to bring homeopathy into the sphere of general medicine why not invent more GPSI posts to whom we can refer for that form of treatment. Peter Billington

OK the sugar pills/water can do no harm, but what about those of the homeopahtic belief-system who think their sugar pills can be used, for e.g., as a substitute for immunisation? No one can be forced to have their children given MMR etc, but the omission element of quackery is potentially harmful and indicates how important it is for this nonsense to be kept out of the NHS.

Also quackery does not have a monopoly on the caring side of medicine, much though arrogant quacks try to argue that it does. Lindy Williams

It does not make sence to even a common man, that no body can prescribe homeopathic medicines if not trained just as the other way, ie practising allopathic medicine without out qualification. If minister thinks so then he has to take the responsibilty.
PS: It is another matter whether "homeopathic medicine works or not" which is best left to patients and minister to decide. MS Basharuthulla