"Not very child-friendly visit to orthopaedics"

I recently visited Orthopeadic clinic with my daughter aged 6.

This was a follow-up appointment to check the improvement of an atraumatic limp she had developed a couple of months ago.

At the earlier appt 4wks ago we had been told there were no issues with her bone development and referred for physio so we were expecting to be discharged.

On seeing the consultant, they examined my daughter again and then asked if we had been given the diagnosis to which I said no and they then told me she had quite a serious hip condition.

The consultant gave me the full name (6 words!) and when i asked them to write it down they didn't have a pen or paper so i had to dig some out.

The consultant then went on to say that my daughter cannot run or jump for the foreseeable future while we "wait and hope" to see if her bone grows back correctly.

The consultant appeared to have no empathy as to the fact that this was a shock to us nor that telling a 6yr old not to run or jump is quite a big thing.

They gave me no idea what the possible outcomes might be.

When i asked for more details about the condition they suggested i "google it" and i had to probe and probe to find out what caused the issue, how it might develop, how to have the best chance of it resolving.

Wait and hope was all the consultant kept saying. When my daughter, having been left out of the the conversation entirely, chipped in and asked if she could go to football practice, the consultant turned and gave her a very curt "no" which i thought was very insensitive.

I have since confirmed that the consultant is a paediatic specialist but that the consultant is new to the dept so i hope that this feedback will perhaps lead to a little extra training in bedside manner and understanding how to talk to children and what's important to them (eg when i asked about scooting the consultant looked totally confused and didn't even see fit to mention trampolining which i would think is very pertinent these days).

I should point out that everyone else we've met at the hospital in children's a&e, x-ray and fracture clinic have been great, in particular the paediatric physio we are now working with.

I just think that the consultant we saw could do with some feedback/training so maybe the next child has a better experience.