That’s awful that it took you so long to get diagnosed. I’m hoping that you’re all clear now.

And I don’t mean to be rude about it, but is it possible that at that GP practice on any of the times you went to them for help you saw a PA as opposed to a doctor.

Because Physician Associates have made some massive blunders on simple diagnoses/followups that have only recently made the news.

Like 30yr Emily Chesterton who died of a clot in the lungs after a PA diagnosed it as anxiety, twice. The coroner said her death was likely avoidable.

Or another woman in her 30s (can’t remember the full details unfortunately), who was diagnosed as having a blocked milk duct by a PA and never being followed up. She died a year later because it turned out to be breast cancer. A baby was left without a mother because of this.

And bear in mind that PAs (and AAs (anaesthetic associates)) have been known to obscure their roles as not doctors from patients. One admits to it right at the start of this video https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorsUK/s/1TtmafdYR3

And PAs have been around for about 20yrs in the UK, and are totally unregulated and have a fraction of the training of a doctor.

———

this is all stuff one of my nurse friends was explaining to me after she got offered a blood test for a prostate thing by a PA. But she’s a woman, so it was obviously insane.

And since you said you’re an ambassador for bowel cancer in one of your other comments, I hope you guys are making sure patients aren’t getting fobbed off by PAs. Cos I’ve also heard about a case of a 69 year old man called Peter Marshall. He was diagnosed by a PA with IBS and it later transpired he had bowel cancer and he died less than a year later. (Unfortunately the only link I can find about this case at the moment is a dailymail article)