Lara

Brief Outline:

Lara is usually healthy so rarely sees the GP. When she does, she has found the staff to be friendly and understanding and doesn’t normally have to wait very long to get an appointment. Her mum usually goes with her to see the doctor.

Background:

Lara is at school, and lives with her mum and sister. Ethnic background / nationality: Argentinian.

More about me...

Lara is usually healthy so rarely sees the GP (local doctor). Although she doesn’t get ill very often, when she was younger her mum would take her for annual check-ups. A few years ago she saw the GP because she had a rash on her arm and chest. Lara’s mum usually makes the appointments and Lara has always been seen very quickly, within a day or two of calling. She feels that the GP consultations have always been helpful and the staff friendly and understanding.

Lara used to see the same GP until recently, when she has been seen by different doctors each time she’s had an appointment. She normally sees a female GP and feels that it is easier to speak to a female doctor about embarrassing things such as stretch marks. 

For Lara, a good GP is understanding and listens to patients. She also thinks it is important for doctors to have good communication skills, and that ‘they should learn to get better at speaking to young people’ by using less formal medical language when speaking to teenagers. 

Lara’s had problems with mouth ulcers before. If she had them again, she’d go to the pharmacy first. If she needed a prescription, she’d go to the GP.

And if you had this recurring problem with the ulcers, what would you typically do? Like if they were to return now for example, who would you go to see first about it? Would you see a pharmacist to get something over the counter or would you make an appointment again with your GP?

Well first of all I would put the cream on that they gave me. And if that doesn’t help any more, I would probably just go to the pharmacy and see if they can give me a drug that will help. Or like maybe, I don’t know if you can get like a prescription again after. I might have to go to the doctor’s. I’m not sure how that works. But if I had to get the same one, but I had to get a prescription from a doctor, I’d just go to the doctor’s and ask them to give us a prescription.

Lara doesn’t usually get ill and some things, like a rash she had, just go away by themselves. She has a general check-up about once a year.

I don’t get very ill normally, like ill enough to have to go [to the GP]. But one time I had like a rash all over my arms and my chest. And so my mum took me to the doctors’ to see if there was like anything wrong. And they were like, “It might just, it will go away.” And it went away. But normally we just go for like check-ups or anything like that. But we don’t go normally, if we’re really ill....

How often do you go for check-ups?

Probably maybe once a year, maybe not even once a year. It’s not very often, but, yeah.

Can you just talk me through what would normally happen in a typical check-up?

Of what I can remember, we would go there. They would ask us questions. They would like check our body, our what’s it called? Like our body temperature. Check our heart rate, and just make sure everything’s okay. And then that’s it.

And who would normally do these check-ups? Was it the nurse or was it the doctor?

Doctor.

Experienced doctors have seen lots of problems before. Good GPs listen without interrupting and give you the information you need in a way you can understand.

What are the qualities of a good doctor?

Well, experience. Cos the more experience you have, you clearly know more, and you see more and stuff like that. Like having, like understanding and listening to the patient and not trying to like, I don’t know, like butt in, if you know what I mean, like, yeah. And also I guess just like good like social qualities, like being able to talk and not being nervous. Like being able to give all the information that you need and knowing all the information that you need.

Do you think that doctors are good at speaking to younger people?

I guess they have to learn to get better at speaking to young people. But I guess when they start they’re a bit like, cos they’re old they’re more used to speaking to older people. And cos they speak really formally cos, and like most medical words are pretty long. And you have quite a lot of different needs and different symptoms and stuff like that. You have to learn how to explain those things to children that don’t know what that means. Especially like, well, I guess not young children, cos they’ll be with their parents. But like teenagers still want to know what they have. So you have to be able to explain it to them.

Doctors are very busy. It may take them a while to find the time to reply to emails. But using technology is a useful way of asking GPs questions.

Lots of people use email these days, and they started thinking, “Maybe we could answer emails.” Would you feel comfortable if you had a question to email the doctor or the nurse your question?

Yeah, but the thing about email is, if lots of people are trying to email this doctor, then it could take him like, cos he’s also got his job. So it could take him a long time to answer. But like maybe in between appointments or whenever he has a free time, he could answer I guess.

So phone would be one way. Possibly email. What if you could text a question at a certain time in the day and then they text back? Would that be helpful or not really? What do you think?

I think, cos like mostly everything’s with technology nowadays, anything to do with technology will be more useful than actually having to go in and ask the question.