What your doctor REALLY thinks of you: From Dr Google to telling lies, GPs reveal the dos and don'ts of what to say so you're taken seriously

Do you turn up to your GP’s surgery with a shopping list of ailments, inform them you’ve already consulted Dr Google, or play down your problem when pressed? Chances are your doctor secretly wants to pen a prescription for a new patient. KERRY PARNELL spoke to medics across the UK to find out what they would like you to do and what they really wish you wouldn’t…

Don’t say you consulted Dr Google

While it’s good you’ve done some research, most doctors are not a fan of Dr Google. ‘I typically say: “Dr Google or Dr YouTube haven’t been to university”,’ says a hospital specialist, adding, if the patient subsequently gets shirty, they reply: ‘Just because I have been a passenger on a plane, does not mean I know how to fly it and can tell the pilot what to do.’ 

Another medic, a GP, says their go-to response is: ‘How fascinating’, before ‘writing a note in my book that will never be looked at again.’

Do present your most serious ailment first

If you’re going to take a shopping list of problems to your GP, at least put the most serious one at the top. A rural-based GP says: ‘The most annoying thing for me is someone presenting with a list of 17 problems, with fairly trivial issues at the start. Then at the end, just as I’m trying to wrap things up, they reveal they have chest pain.’ 

An inner-city GP says when they encounter ‘the list’, they ask the patient to hand it over, declaring, ‘we’ll work out the most important together.’

Do say it’s serious

While some patients visit their GP at the first sign of a sniffle – ‘If you come in and tell me it hurts when you twist your wrist round and bend your fingers back, I’ll pause, then advise you not to try that unnatural movement,’ says one GP. Conversely, no doctor wants you to stay away from their surgery too long, or underplay your problem when you do turn up.

‘Some of my most wonderful patients are farmers,’ explains the rural GP. ‘One of our old jokes is a farmer booked in by reception with “a scratch”, is usually an emergency with a bleeding amputation, as farmers are so tough.’

‘I absolutely adore my older stoic patients,’ says another GP. ‘There was one dear man in his 90s, who I asked if he’d moved back into the area as we didn’t have any notes since 1976. He told me he hadn’t needed to “bother us” since then, but had made this appointment to tell me he was lonely, as his wife had passed away. He wanted it noted that when he died, he’d like, “old age” to be put on his death certificate, “like the Queen”. A few months later, I was able to fulfil his wish.’

Do tell the truth

There’s no point lying, if you want help. From the alcoholic who hotly denied he had a problem but arrived for a GP consultation with a bottle of whisky in hand and on being questioned over his alcohol intake, ‘made deep eye contact, before ostentatiously pouring it down my sink,’ to the hospital patient who, ‘just off a ventilator, headed straight outside for a cigarette,’ there’s nothing more likely to make a doctor’s heart sink.

Don’t use euphemisms

Medics have seen and heard it all, so speak plainly. ‘I have gentlemen tell me they’re having problems with, “their portholes”,’ says a London-based GP. ‘Many patients tell me they are spending too many pennies. Luckily I can translate.’ 

The best way to discuss your problem is, ‘in simple layman terms,’ says the hospital specialist. ‘Even better, if the patient clearly tells us what they consider to be a good outcome or are able to identify what they would like to be changed as a result of treatment.’

Don’t have questionable hygiene issues

Want to know which kind of patient really stinks, in doctors’ opinions? ‘I don’t like people who aren’t very clean, who shed bits of skin on my floor,’ says a city-based GP. However, don’t stress about the personal grooming aspect – all the doctors I spoke to agreed they don’t care about anything down there… just as long as it’s clean. One GP admitted to tackling the hygiene issue by advising pungent patients to, ‘take one tablet after a bath’. So now you know!