A day in the life of a GP triage covid doc
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A day in the life of a GP triage covid doc – 27th March 2020
Try and wake up after and interrupted nights sleep where I have worried about people I spoke to the night before. Did I send the right patients in. Did I keep the right patients at home? Did I send a home visit doctor to a house where the risk was appropriate.. was the visit really needed? Did I make sure a child was seen when they needed to be?
Have breakfast. Read emails. Read the guidelines.. oh they have changed again. .they change and change and change again ..
Asthma, diabetes, cancer, pregnancy, inflammatory bowel disease – ok that’s them done…
PPE- right what the latest? What are we suppose to wear and for what . Do we nebulise? Do we not? Steroids? No steroids ? Ok think I have got my head round that one… ok no throats and no ibuprofen.
Now let’s get to grips with social isolation, social distancing, shielding, new pregnancy guidelines, testing – who is getting tested, who isn’t.. 7 days, 14 days, stay at home, leave home, home workers, social islolation notes …
Great it’s work time…
6-8 hours.
Triage, high risk, balancing need to see, to not see. Resources. Anxiety, fear. You hear the fear. The fear in their voices is real. Thankfully a lot of the time you can settle the fear and that’s one of the best bits of the call. You hear the fear just go. Literally just disappears.
Then you have the people who just don’t get it. Whatever you say. They don’t comprehend the need for various reasons to stay at home. They are rude. They abuse the service and also take the service away from people who need it more. This is hard in so many ways… breathe… stay calm … breathe again… what’s it’s called again housekeeping..
Always always checking guidelines, talking to colleagues. Listening to breathing. Always listening to breathing. I feel I hear breathing in my sleep..
Home… more emails.. more guidelines. Try and fit in some home work, some family time and some down time. Some what’s app. We have the best what’s app. My colleagues are the best. Some cuddles with the kids. They are missing me a lot but they know what’s going on. They understand . They have had the occasional bad dream but they are doing really well otherwise coping with all the changes in their lives otherwise. We try and sleep and Prepare for it again tomorrow.
It’s all worth it but I am bloody shattered 😂
We do the bloody best we can every single day. It’s what GPs do ❤️
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Ruth Gibson
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- A day in the life of a GP triage covid doc - 14th April 2020
