Of course things aren't straightforward ...

[percival]

As you may remember, our German paediatrician suggested that we have our daughter's eyes checked by a paediatric ophthalmologist.

After waiting two weeks for a GP appointment, today was the big day. The GP we saw didn't even take a good look at our daughter's eyes. She honestly said that she didn't know how to refer to paediatric ophthalmology because it was such a small field and not her speciality. She'll talk to the Health Visitor and let me know. I'll talk to my Health Visitor separately.

As you may guess, I'm distinctly underwhelmed. I thought that, having voiced serious concern and gotten the expert opinion of a paediatrician who routinely screens babies' vision, I would get a referral. I thought I would have to wait quite a while, but hey, such is life ... I wasn't expecting this.

Ah well, at least the GP was honest.

Comments

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

did you mean to leave her name in an open post?

And yes, honest GPs are usually the ones that will go out of their way to sort out a referral, but prefer to say it could be difficult.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Going out of her way to get me a referral would have meant to call the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, which is supposed to be a very good ophthalmology unit. She didn't take me seriously.

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

Ah, right...

My GP in Cambridge referred me to a specialist in Newcastle, even though when I first went to see him he was sceptical about the Cushing's.

I miss Dr Owens...

[ljrags.livejournal.com]

That is disappointing. Such a strange contrast. I can't get a GP to look at the kids for love or money. "Normal" docs won't deal with the kids in this city. We have use pediatric everything, even the ophthalmologist for Sean and dentist.

I suppose looking up the names of pediatric ophthalmogists and giving them to the GP would be rude?

[perceval.livejournal.com]

There are very few paediatric anything - everything is through the GP, and specialist services are hard to come by ... but we know of a very good hospital in London where she can be seen privately.

[atropos87.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is annoying. I hope she sorts out a referral for you soon :/

[aeljn.livejournal.com]

What, she couldn't pick up the call and ask someone???

Best of luck in getting that referral. If you get a term (and don't forget to ask if there are various types once you do), you might want to check out the USA's National Library of Medicine website and do some searching there. I no longer have the resources I did when I was a medical librarian, but this is good and it's free:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov

(I said to ask if there are variations because I helped patients as well as our staff and sometimes they would come in with a general term. The champ for possibilities was the patient who had glaucoma. Our dictionary of visual terms listed about 10-11 different types and the treatments could differ, depending upon the type one had.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. I work at a uni, so I have access to some good reference materials. I know what it might be, and I've researched that quite thoroughly. Nevertheless, I'm hoping for some more detailed info from the paed.