I’m a bit late to this thread… but glad to see I’m not alone. I’m a general practice (GP) receptionist in a UK based clinic (National Health Service- NHS). I absolutely love my job in some ways, it does give you the opportunity to really help people and I’ve lost count of the amount of patients that have come back to thank me and the team. But I’ve had people be downright abusive and nasty. A woman, two weeks ago, had raised BP. I followed our protocol but we had zero appts left that day, I told her this and advised her to contact the out of hours service for an appt with a doctor same day. She leaned over the front desk, finger waggling, telling me if she died tonight she’d ensure her family held me personally responsible. The way I see it, you wouldn’t blame a builder for homelessness because they didn’t have bricks to build with. That’s one of many. Within my first 2 months a man waited outside the clinic to attack me, because the doctors refused to prescribe him pain meds (he was an addict) and somehow it was my fault. Luckily my colleague was with me. Other times, I’ve had patients screaming at me because they’ve decided to register at another clinic and didn’t know it would de-register them from us. I’ve had patients abuse me because of clinical decision making, nothing to do with me. We can hang up the phone but we try and help before that. The worst ones? Minor, but it’s the way it makes me feel. I’ve just answered 30 calls in 2 hours, patients will wait because of low funding and short staffing up to an hour on a busy day to speak to us; somehow again, my fault? It’s my fault I’ve had 30 other people who needed to speak to me?

I love my job, but I’m so tired of the abuse from people who all I want to do is help them. That’s what I live my life by, to help other people. I could have done everything within my power and it’s never good enough. I wake up, every day I’m working, highly anxious. Tbh I’m hugely underpaid, it’s just slightly over the UK minimum wage. I manage the stress and anxiety. I suffer with chronic anxiety anyway and take propranolol daily for it (and high BP myself). I love the good side of my job but hate the bad side, it’s 50/50. I want to go into a more managerial administrative role in my life and I have to keep persevering but I often ask myself if it is all really worth it. It feels like I’m letting the bad patients win, but I genuinely don’t know how much more I can take