Doctors are being offered training to improve their bedside manner...Well, it's about time!
...after dozens of patients complained about being ‘fat-shamed’ by NHS staff.Wait, what?
Some took exception to being told that they were an unhealthy weight, needed to improve their diet or were too big to fit in scanners or have operations. The Royal College of Physicians said healthcare workers ‘must not be afraid’ to raise the issue because of the ‘very severe risks’ of obesity but they should discuss it ‘sensitively’ and avoid using ‘stigmatising language’.How the hell do you point out to someone that the only scanner they will fit in is at Seaworld or London Zoo 'sensitively'..?
One doctor at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust allegedly told a woman she was morbidly obese and it was her fault because of ‘the crap she eats’.
Maybe it was. What else should the doctor have told her?
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘A lot of people are in denial about their weight and doctors should not shy away from telling them home truths.
‘Some healthcare workers may need to improve their bedside manner but there will be some patients who take offence at being told they are overweight no matter how sensitively it is done.’
I can't believe I'm agreeing with Tam Fry of all people!
*peers out of window for quartet of eerie horsemen*
There is the problem of people being classed as obese unless they resemble a bean pole.
ReplyDeleteFrom all the TV coverage of 'angelic', clap-receiving NHS staff, it seems to me that they have a bigger problem within their own workforce than exists in the general public, especially the waddling, lard-arsed nurse-types - before pontificating about our weight, maybe they should look more closely at their own.
ReplyDeleteI believe the apt phrase is 'Physician, heal thyself'.
I quite like fattie laerd-arsed nurses, because they don't raise the subject at all!
ReplyDelete"There is the problem of people being classed as obese unless they resemble a bean pole."
ReplyDeleteOh, indeed! BMI is pointless; its sole recommendation is even university dergree'd up modern nurses can't get it wrong.
"From all the TV coverage of 'angelic', clap-receiving NHS staff, it seems to me that they have a bigger problem within their own workforce than exists in the general public..."
A recent trip to the local hospital to take my mother for her eye scan suggested they range from tiny, petite Filipinos to Africans for which the only description was less 'obese' and more 'Oh lord, she comin'!'...
"I quite like fattie laerd-arsed nurses, because they don't raise the subject at all!"
Heh!