I have just finished three days of work experience at a General Practice in Hartcliffe (South Bristol) called Hillview Family Practice. It has been a very interesting and informative few days because of the huge variation in what I have seen, and it is hard to think about how varied a GP's day is when you just visit for a 10 minute appointment.
There were a number of things that made the days so good, as well as the diversity of cases that the patients brought in, such as being able to sit in with one of the GP's and observing the way that she carried out an examination on patients and realising the small amount of time in which a GP has so many things to carry out. They have to receive the patient and try to get down to the problem as quickly as possible, trying to get past the things in the patients story that don't actually have any relevance and get to the things that need to be dealt with. For example if a patient comes in with leg pain and a cold, the GP has to get past the fact that they have a cold, even though the patient talks about it as tha main part of the story (thinking that they are linked), and needs to focus on the leg pain, which could be a development of arthritis or a pulled muscle...
What I also noticed was the sheer volume of people that come through the door of the practice every day. There isn't much time in the day and all the free areas on the timetable at the beginning of the day for 'on call', quickly become filled with home visits or more appointments for people who need to be seen. There is also a large amount of 'admin' that needs to be performed to do with prescriptions for patients and so on which means that timings can become quite irregular.
I also took the chance to talk to some patients of the practice and I asked them what they thought of the service that the practice prosuces; one man replyed that the service has been fantastic and that he could not have asked for more. I have also furthered my understanding that some people choose to take free healthcare for granted, after observing a statistic on reception that over 300 people did not attend their appointments in a month and also the reluctance of some patients to comply with the best advice that they could be offered (from someone in the medical profession).
I spent some time in the treatment room in the practice where they take blood samples, analyse urine samples and administer vaccinations for babies; among other things. The blood that they take is sent off and can be tested for a number of different things, while the urine is also tested for a number of things such as glucose levels, pH etc. which can lead to further examinations.
On Thursday I went on a visit with one of the GP's to the MHA care home based in Hartcliffe, which is the older of the two MHA care homes in Bristol. It was very interesting to see the differences between the MHA care home that I volunteer at and the Hartcliffe MHA. What I noticed most of all was the extra floor space of this care home, set up in a different style to Horfield Lodge and seemed to make the place feel bigger. However the colours of the corridors were a lot darker (purples and creams) compared to Horfield Lodge (whites and reds). This made it feel as if there was no natural light and a bit enclosed from the outside world, even though more spacious.
On the whole I enjoyed my time at Hillview Family Practice, it was a great opportunity to observe how a General Practice works and how intense it can be at times; but it will also be interesting to see how it differs from another General Practice placement that I have planned for in August, based in Easton, which has a very different socio-economic standing to Hartcliffe.
There were a number of things that made the days so good, as well as the diversity of cases that the patients brought in, such as being able to sit in with one of the GP's and observing the way that she carried out an examination on patients and realising the small amount of time in which a GP has so many things to carry out. They have to receive the patient and try to get down to the problem as quickly as possible, trying to get past the things in the patients story that don't actually have any relevance and get to the things that need to be dealt with. For example if a patient comes in with leg pain and a cold, the GP has to get past the fact that they have a cold, even though the patient talks about it as tha main part of the story (thinking that they are linked), and needs to focus on the leg pain, which could be a development of arthritis or a pulled muscle...
What I also noticed was the sheer volume of people that come through the door of the practice every day. There isn't much time in the day and all the free areas on the timetable at the beginning of the day for 'on call', quickly become filled with home visits or more appointments for people who need to be seen. There is also a large amount of 'admin' that needs to be performed to do with prescriptions for patients and so on which means that timings can become quite irregular.
I also took the chance to talk to some patients of the practice and I asked them what they thought of the service that the practice prosuces; one man replyed that the service has been fantastic and that he could not have asked for more. I have also furthered my understanding that some people choose to take free healthcare for granted, after observing a statistic on reception that over 300 people did not attend their appointments in a month and also the reluctance of some patients to comply with the best advice that they could be offered (from someone in the medical profession).
I spent some time in the treatment room in the practice where they take blood samples, analyse urine samples and administer vaccinations for babies; among other things. The blood that they take is sent off and can be tested for a number of different things, while the urine is also tested for a number of things such as glucose levels, pH etc. which can lead to further examinations.
On Thursday I went on a visit with one of the GP's to the MHA care home based in Hartcliffe, which is the older of the two MHA care homes in Bristol. It was very interesting to see the differences between the MHA care home that I volunteer at and the Hartcliffe MHA. What I noticed most of all was the extra floor space of this care home, set up in a different style to Horfield Lodge and seemed to make the place feel bigger. However the colours of the corridors were a lot darker (purples and creams) compared to Horfield Lodge (whites and reds). This made it feel as if there was no natural light and a bit enclosed from the outside world, even though more spacious.
On the whole I enjoyed my time at Hillview Family Practice, it was a great opportunity to observe how a General Practice works and how intense it can be at times; but it will also be interesting to see how it differs from another General Practice placement that I have planned for in August, based in Easton, which has a very different socio-economic standing to Hartcliffe.
They have to receive anal from the patient and try to ejaculate as quickly as possible.
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