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Have some thought for their workload
MS PATRICIA Koh rails against general practitioners (GPs) for their supposed tardiness in opening their clinics to treat her just as she is overcome by an indisposition ('Lack of punctuality reflects poorly on GPs, frustrating for patients', Sept 19).
Let me share with her the arduous lot of the GP as he stays in his clinic plying his trade.
Most GPs, especially in the initial decade of practice, work more than 12-hour days split over three sessions and 70-hour weeks, including weekends and public holiday mornings if not evenings.
When they are not in the clinic, they must spend time on continuing medical education - reading up and attending seminars and symposiums. There is precious little time left for family after all that.
Daily, even as they strive to make a decent living, they are at the forefront in the fight against infectious diseases and routinely risk their health doing so.
While trivial maladies take only minutes to dispose of, doctors are expected not to miss the life-threatening conditions nor the silent killers which take detailed and time-consuming examination.
It is all extremely stressful to the doctor with a waiting room full of other fretful patients, each claiming more insufferable pain than the others and clamouring to be attended to with priority, queue numbers notwithstanding.
The oft-unacknowledged but marvellous aspect of medical care in Singapore is that it is so multifaceted and easily available.
If Ms Koh cannot forgive her GPs for not starting on time due to their previous day's labours, which may include an untimely midnight house call, polyclinics - with their advantage of being manned by several doctors unburdened by late-night work sessions - are at her early morning beck and call.
She could also have presented herself at any of our 24-hour hospital emergency departments.
Dr Yik Keng Yeong
MS PATRICIA Koh rails against general practitioners (GPs) for their supposed tardiness in opening their clinics to treat her just as she is overcome by an indisposition ('Lack of punctuality reflects poorly on GPs, frustrating for patients', Sept 19).
Let me share with her the arduous lot of the GP as he stays in his clinic plying his trade.
Most GPs, especially in the initial decade of practice, work more than 12-hour days split over three sessions and 70-hour weeks, including weekends and public holiday mornings if not evenings.
When they are not in the clinic, they must spend time on continuing medical education - reading up and attending seminars and symposiums. There is precious little time left for family after all that.
Daily, even as they strive to make a decent living, they are at the forefront in the fight against infectious diseases and routinely risk their health doing so.
While trivial maladies take only minutes to dispose of, doctors are expected not to miss the life-threatening conditions nor the silent killers which take detailed and time-consuming examination.
It is all extremely stressful to the doctor with a waiting room full of other fretful patients, each claiming more insufferable pain than the others and clamouring to be attended to with priority, queue numbers notwithstanding.
The oft-unacknowledged but marvellous aspect of medical care in Singapore is that it is so multifaceted and easily available.
If Ms Koh cannot forgive her GPs for not starting on time due to their previous day's labours, which may include an untimely midnight house call, polyclinics - with their advantage of being manned by several doctors unburdened by late-night work sessions - are at her early morning beck and call.
She could also have presented herself at any of our 24-hour hospital emergency departments.
Dr Yik Keng Yeong
