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The GP comedy act

The lights went up on the comedy act.

’Good evening ladies and gentleman. Don’t you just hate it when people with the sniffles come and ask you for antibiotics? Don’t you just hate that eh! When grown men and women come and ask you for antibiotics for the sniffles! That makes me mad that does, does it make you made too? I bet it does.

And don’t get me started on inspections! 

And don’t you just hate it when people use an emergency appointment just to waste your time! That really gets under my skin that does, that makes me so angry that,  but not as angry as when people don’t show up at all.  

And every year yeah, every single year we have to have an appraisal don’t we? God that makes my blood boil. All those forms we have to fill out! You’ve seen ‘em haven’t you, all those forms. You know what I’m talking about. All those forms we have to fill out, we’ve all been there haven’t we, filling out those forms! 

And don’t get me started on inspections! People coming round with clipboards inspecting stuff, looking everywhere with their clipboards! Ticking boxes on their clipboards. That really gets me going that, all those clipboards. We’ve all seen ‘em haven’t we eh! People with clipboards! God those clipboards wind me up!

In fact I’m so angry and so frustrated that I’m going to wait until my wife is at work and I’m going to lock the door and get a pair of stepladders out of the shed, I’m going to down a bottle of vodka and write a little note telling her how much I love her and then I’m going to take a load of tablets and put that home-made noose around my neck and then I’m going to screw my eyes shut and hang myself, right there in the living room… yeah… yeah! Oh come on folks we’ve all been there haven’t we! We’ve all done it! What’s the matter? Why have you all stopped laughing?’

And then the lights went out. 

Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Edinburgh