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In the days when I was stopping providing routine antibiotic prescription after taking out wisdom teeth based on the guidance of the Royal College of Surgeons (mid 1990’s) and the research initiated by Curran in 1972 there was a famous story that emerged from the North West of the country.

Reportedly there was a maxillofacial surgeon there who had heard of this research in the move towards stopping routine antibiotic prescription and had told a lecture that he was delighted to embrace the concept for his NHS patients but would be continuing to prescribe antibiotics for his private patients.

For anybody that works in healthcare they will understand the madness of that, antibiotics are no more likely to be affected just because you come from the middle or upper class, but it does demonstrate this odd alteration in our logical thinking when it comes to groups of patients who we feel we’re more beholden to than others.

Systems exist in healthcare and protocols and procedures are there for a reason.

These are no way perfect in any aspect of healthcare but the more we work at them the better we get and the more predicable healthcare outcomes will be. So why would we avoid this, delay it or alter it for members of our own family. The emotion that comes into play when we treat family members is a bit like the emotion that comes into play for the maxillofacial surgeon above and his private patients.

I am in an extremely fortunate position that I have reached an age where I have the ability to help my parents and my in laws with any healthcare issues or needs they might have, but of course the systems that exist in place for treating everybody are not quite good enough for my parents. I think this reflects an overall personalized view of healthcare and the unwillingness to be ill or sick.

In the entitle society that we live in we should just be able to go to the cash point, take the money out and pay for our health to come back. Of course this is not true but more importantly we explain to people that it’s not true.

Because you have paid for your healthcare does not mean you’re exempt from complications, problems or difficulties. Because you’re a member of my family or your family doesn’t mean problems that take a month to fix can be fixed in a day because I don’t want to wait. It’s hard this business when I reflect back on it, treating patients that see you like they’re a member of your own family goes both ways because then you have to treat members of your own family as though they’re patients.

Blog post number: 1455