short changed on teaching

Today I travelled 50 miles to a nearby city for 6 hours of post graduate training, specifically under the heading of "emergency medicine". I have always believed that all doctors should keep themselves up to date with this most important area. Whether in the surgery, the street or on the road, literally anything can happen and we must be ready to act quickly and appropriately. But in the "keynote" lecture, the lecturer immediately strayed from his agenda and instead spoke for nearly an hour on hand injuries, a subject he openly admitted was actually prepared for junior orthopaedic surgeons (there were no orthopods present) and not GPs (of which about 30 were present).

Later however, by way of compensation, there was a much more interesting discourse on serious eye conditions.

Lunch consisted of a perfectly passable lasagne, but the day then reached a new low when we were subjected to an hour's talk on the paperwork issues surrounding controlled drugs (mainly diamorphine, used for the most severe pain). At one point a straw poll revealed that 2/3 of GPs have solved the problems of keeping morphine in the surgery and in the "black bag", by simply not carrying it at all, as I have done for nearly 10 years now. So what's the point of this? I wanted to shout.

The final lecture was entitled "the sick child" but I ducked it and made my way home an hour early instead. Thing is, when you've got a sick child in general practice, you just send it to hospital, quick sharp. End of story.