davidgillon | How Many Consultants Does it take to Change a Lightbulb?

Or less classically, but more accurately, how long does it take a consultant to write a letter? I just checked yesterday's mail and found two letters from the consultant I've been seeing. Clinic date 28th October, letter typed 11th February, letter received 26th February. I knew the guy was disorganised (the saving grace being he clearly knew his job, the problem with that being he's a shoulder specialist and my problem turns out to be neck -- just like I told my GP it would), but this is plain ridiculous, worse, the letter I'm really waiting for is for a clinic six weeks later, and the two are potentially working at cross-purposes. And if it takes three and a half months to refer someone to a locum specialist, will she still be there when the letter arrives? I've got a definite urge to bang heads together. Particularly if it takes them 17 days to send a letter two miles!

I'd actually given up on anything from that appointment as the next clinic, with a different doctor, seemed to reach a slightly different conclusion and wanted to discharge me and refer me through my GP rather than do it in house as with this one. I had planned to chase Rheumatology last week about the delay in my GP receiving the letter from the December clinic as she's reluctant to make a referral without knowing why, but I've been too out of it with my pain levels, ironically enough from the very problem we've been discussing, to do anything about it :(

And beyond that, semantics, dammit! 'He is not keen on having any further treatment' is not a remotely accurate summary of what I said to him, which was that I wasn't prepared to consider surgery at that moment, but very much wanted to follow up on the investigation to understand how it was likely to interact with my existing lower back problems and the osteo-arthritis that showed up on unexpectedly on the bone scan, and the options for long-term integrated management of all three issues that flow out of that.