Do GPs read your medical history before an appointment?

10 comments

1. They should, but I get the impression that they don’t.

   I’ve been in and had to re-iterate gastrointestinal surgeries a few times, so it’s best to cover the basics from scratch

2. Even with extensive notes, with something complicated like depression I’ve gone over my story with new gps and what’s worked and what hasn’t. I don’t think they can have any teal idea even if they do read some notes.

3. They likely won’t have time. Be prepared to give them the headlines, relevant years, treatments, medications so they can quickly reference in your notes.

4. I’d assume not, as they likely don’t have time, and with only 8 minutes to an appointment, I guess I’d suggest having some realistic expectations of what you might want from them.

   I went once to discuss stress. They gave diet/exercise advice and offered to sign me off work. What I really wanted was someone to listen, and in retrospect my GP was not the right person for that because they are very solution focussed, and I should have thought about what I expected them to do.

5. I doubt it. Even when the receptionist has dragged the reason out of me against my will, I still go into the doctors office and get asked what the issue is.

6. They’ll usually go through it with you or skim your notes during the appointment. Have s quick version ready if you need it and any answers to questions they’re likely to ask.

7. Our computer system works a bit like a diary. So on opening your patient record we’ll see the most recent couple of entires which usually gives us a fair idea of what’s going on. There’s also a filter tab I use which tells me what your significant medical history is. So things such as depression, heart attack, asthma, etc will appear here. Where as things like sore throats, chest infections won’t. However this filter literally just tells us the diagnosis. To go through the ins and outs of whats happened in the past would take a lot of scrolling and a lot of time which we just don’t have.

8. In my experience, no. They might have had a skim but this is seldom enough to give them any insight into a specific on-going issue or even what meds / treatment you are currently on.

   I tend to practice a short verbal introduction covering all the pertinent points before I have a consultation. I have coronary issues so support my 2min ted talk with graphs and and shit.

   Bottom line is that 99% of GP’s don’t have the time to investigate what is wrong with you so you have to make a good pitch in order to pique their interest.

9. Its often a fight to get them to look at it when you are in the room…

10. No. and as a result ghe number of times i end up saying. no, cant take that because….