<<So what *is* the question?   And who should we ask to get a valid
answer?
How about: "Given all the hassles and rewards of being a GP these days,
is the job still fulfilling enough to make you motivated  to continue?">>

No, obviously.    And God knows I have put enough into it and tried hard
enough to stick at it.

<< My *impression* is that there are a huge number of us who
dislike some of the hassley stuff - I get stressed too - but are
*overall* satisfied with our situation & get a considerable buzz  from
working as family doctors.  And while we feel compassion towards some of
our exhausted and damaged colleagues, we get turned off by a lot of the
griping and whingeing that goes on that  seems to get loads of coverage
in GP magazines.  I fully accept that stress *is* an important issue for>>

The *facts*--in so far as they can be accurately determined----are that up
to 25% of GPs are suffering mental illness severe enough to interfere
significantly with their work, their quality of life or both.   
Personally, I think that this situation gets very little coverage in the GP
press and could give you several examples of important problems in GP that
have been only skimpily covered.  
GPs are like men,  they tend to keep a lot to themselves and go on until
they drop.  Griping and whingeing are the opposite of what those of us in a
position to hear about GP mental illness actually experience---as I said,
the average mentally ill GP goes on far beyond what we would accept is
safe.   
There are real issues here of damage to the self, of damage to the
patients, of damage to the profession and its public standing, of treatment
of professionals by other professionals and the contemptible failure of
government to protect its investment by providing a decent occ health
service for doctors.  Who is actually to "blame" for all this is not really
the issue right now and I am unclear as to when and where I said anything
about that---correct me if I have forgotten.  "Blame" is a rather sterile
concept in psychotherapy anyway and if I learned anything useful in GP it
was how to do psychotherapy at warp speed.  So I would tend to avoid
useless concepts like that.
So there is a lot more to this discussion than simple stress or
hassle----can I make it very clear indeed that when I use the word "stress"
in the context of sick doctors,  I am talking about pathological stress
which makes people sick.  Those who have not experienced this should be
thankful and while I and fellow sufferers are generally not looking for any
sympathy from the healthy,  we are looking for some degree of willingness
to look at the literature and take our carefully considered statements
seriously.  Argue and disagree if you wish but first try to understand our
words and second, look at the evidence.
Declan


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