The King is Naked and the GMC of the UK–brotherhood of FOLLY
Who hasn’t heard the tale of the naked king, who succeeded at making his subjects schizophrenically believe that nakedness is the norm?? That nakedness isn’t nakedness at all!
The same folly still occurs today when you view the final press release in the Fitness to Practice hearing of Dr Gordon B Skinner in the UK, sent to me by Lyn Mynott, chair of Thyroid UK. In case you aren’t up on the news, Dr. Skinner has been brought before the GMC because he dares to treat his patients with thyroid hormone when they have so-called “normal” blood lab test results. The General Medical Council (GMC) is the “big brother” of all doctors in the UK, dictating exactly what is “a good standard of practice and care” for patients and the “proper standards in medicine”.
And you don’t have to guess long to know what that “good standard of practice” is. Namely, that man-made ink spots on a piece of paper called labwork tells the truth, and your slew of symptoms do not. That your chronic low-grade depression is of “unknown origin” or imagined. That your aches and pains are from Fibromyalgia or imagined. That your easy weight gain is because you eat too much or exercise too little. That your rising cholesterol is from what you eat or your genes. That your hair loss is simply alopecia or age. That your poor stamina simply means to take naps. And they can all occur with “normal” thyroid labs.
It’s simply pure and simple crazy-making: Of COURSE you aren’t hypothyroid. Your lab work is NORMAL. You are NORMAL.
What a bunch of brainless, skunk-butt bull crap.
If what is happening to Skinner by the GMC isn’t so pitiful, it would be hilarious. History will one day look back at this and weep.
Maybe it should therefore be – more appropriately – called the “hypocritical oath” instead?!
about the hippocratic oath-the hippocratic oath is just a ceremony now! No doctor really takes any notice of it.
P Kenennedy raises an interesting issue – 1 in 14 women suffer thyroid disorders. In this patriarchal society, women are still more likely to experience poverty, poor health, discrimiation in the workplace, lower pay etc as a direct result of their gender. I am sure certain that if that statement read ‘1 in 14 men suffer from thryoid disorders’, there would be no need for this website. All those, mainly male endocrinologists would be doing their jobs by helping their male peers to get better and not dismissing them as hysterical hypochrondriacs.
I am wondering why 1 in 14 women have this dis-ease? Doesn’t anyone else find this to be strange in the first place?
My female endo confided in me that she has Hashimoto’s (as do I) but that she had not needed to be on any meds as she was pushing Synthroid.
I found a holistic doc whom I must pay out of pocket for help. This is not an effective system.
I think we should all be outraged that so many women have this underdiagnosed disease and to bring it to the forefront of public awareness in terms of what is happening.
It really scares me that doctors who are fulfilling their hippocratic oath are being hounded and hunted. “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.” or “To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.”
I wonder if the hippocratic oath could be used as a basis for a lawsuit?? Particularily for those of us who have had harm done to us by the doctors pleasing the big pharma companies by prescribing inadequate treatment which can and does create life threatening illnesses. 3 members of my family have been mistreated with t4 only meds and 3 have suffered heart attacks. Coincidence? I think not.
We, with negative test results, who finally have been heard by good doctors need to be heard by all!! Please post your story at oprah.com, click be on the show, for story idea type in your thyroid story with a note that January is Thyroid Awareness month. January is on it’s way and we need to be heard!! I wish everyone could go to my endo. He doesn’t contract with any insurance companies so he has the freedom to treat patients and not have insurance companies breathing down his neck.
This is truley frightening. Is it the beginning of the end? If doctors are afraid to treat based on symptoms due to organizations that set standard of practice (those very few good doctors that some of us have managed to find), then where will we be? I’m afraid for what the future holds if this good doctor is punished, and used as an example of what will happen to any doctor who uses common sense and symptoms to help patients to get well.
the way the AMA, et. al. view docs who treat by symptoms is the way that they treated Dr. Barry Marshall. Dr. Marshall discovered that bacteria caused ulcers instead of stress, etc. and how the “conventional” therapy was just masking the bacteria and making them more virile. He had to inject himself to prove it……..docs not only are ignorant many times, but follow the crowd and are afaid to venture out due to malpractice, whatever……….(Char, my own dad had ulcers so badly that they had to remove part of this stomach. And he was told they were due to stress. I think back about that often.)
Hi Janie,
This is what scares me about government run medicine. Money-wise maybe it would be cheaper, but whoever said cheaper is better. I prefer that doctors have some say in the management of their patients health. True, we do have to search to find these doctors but at least they don’t have big brother looking over their shoulder. Also we have the alternative of the internet (which I am very familiar with) and can think for ourselves. I actually ran into this problem here in Utah. The HMO doctor told me she couldn`t give my daughter Armour without getting in trouble. I had been able to get a prescription from her for myself because I had been on it with a previous out of state doctor’s prescription. And she also never failed to put on my lab test record that I was taking too much (90mg). At that time my afternoon temp. was 96.5. Now I am taking 180 (how about that! Double) and feeling much better and temp. is about 97.6. Don`t know if I ever will get it to “normal” but feeling so much better. Thank you for your very HARD work… Dee
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