"Nothing"

What I liked

Nothing

What could be improved

I was admitted to the Medical Assessment Unit at The Horton on August 1st, 2009 having produced brown coffee-ground vomit, a clear indication of an ulcer.

The consultant saw me on 17/8/09. He seemed to think that I was only suffering from hypochondria and depression.

In his letter to my G.P dated 18/8/09, he said It does become a semantic argument that Gluten sensitivity to us means people who do not like eating bread.

Test showed liver malfunction.

In his letter of 28/9/090 he said: most likely diagnosis… is fatty liver relating to morbid obesity. My height is about 1.9m, and when I was weighted at his clinic my weight was 115 Kg.

On 10th October, at the Warwick out-of-hours surgery, I was diagnosed with Jaundice.

On 14th October I had an Ultrasound scan: no fatty liver (wrong again), but gallstones.

In his letter dated 25/11/09 he said as I had no right upper quadrant it may not be necessary for me to see the surgeons at the moment.

On December 18/12/09, I had an MRI scan.

On 26/2/10 I saw him.

I had not been informed of the results of the MRI scan or of the repeated liver function test, so I asked him what he could tell me.

He said that the MRI scan showed some gallstones – I asked him how many, what size and what total quantity, and he could not, or would not tell me, but he said that he recommended surgery. At the time of the scan, the radiographer told me that she could not answer those questions, as she had not (at that time) measured the stones.

Why recommend surgery to remove a gallbladder when the gallstones are producing no symptoms? (He had not asked me for an update on my symptoms - there had been considerable further improvement.)

I showed him a photograph of the result of my latest gall flush, and he said that the jade-coloured lumps were “poo”, and that gallstones are white.

He said that he had written to my GP in January – I asked him why I had not had a copy of that letter, and he said that I had “an unconventional view of clinical practice."

Anything else?

I suggest that your consultants should have compulsory continued professional development.