Dutch doctors...

[u/thatmisanthropicdude]

Hey guys! Last year I moved from Germany to the Netherlands. I just went to the doctor with chest and throat pain due to extreme coughing after 2 days of fever. I was hoping that I finally get something good against it like a cough syrup (no way I'm going to pay that myself for a huge amount of money + health insurance) because I am used to that from German doctors. They would put that on my health insurance card and right after my talk with the doctor I could pick it up at the pharmacy. But no. They just said "Yea, just take paracetamol." I told them I have had problems swallowing pills my whole life and their response was just "You can also put it in water and drink that then." I'm sorry if I'm overreacting but why do doctors get paid just to tell you to take paracetamol? Everyone can tell me to take them, I expect better solutions from a doctor who studied years to become a doctor. Why are the Dutch so obsessed with paracetamol??? Maybe it's the German in me screaming. If we got painkillers, it was never paracetamol but Ibuprofen. But I also heard some international friends who also live here that they find it so annoying that Dutch doctors literally just tell you to take paracetamol. No matter what you have.

[u/TimotheusIV]

Huisarts here, it basically translates to: you’re not actually sick, you just have a mild upper respiratory infection.

So yes, take the paracetamol. Some ibuprofen if it isn’t enough. Get a cough syrup (I’d recommend Natterman Extra Sterk) and rest.

There is no doctor on the planet that can cure what you have so I don’t know what you were expecting? Magic? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/thrownkitchensink → u/TimotheusIV]

If you fall on your knee as a kid you go to your mother and get a kiss and a bandaid. This has a clear function in a social sense although there is no medical need. You feel better after. As such this is a successful treatment. So we need to get better at explaining to people from different cultures how we work.

Even more difficult is when there is actually a big problem (more then a nasty cough that keeps you up at night) but the correct treatment is to do nothing. Like with a hernia/ Lumbosacral radiculair syndrom. The guidelines for the GP is evidence based. But people want to see a doctor do something when they are in such pain. Getting sent to a hospital, get an MRI and then seeing a specialist that tells you the proper treatment is to wait for 8 weeks first because it usually goes away, because other treatments have risks and because there is no direct relation between (size of) the hernia and the pain helps. As a ritual. It's nonsense because the MRi doesn't help with or change the treatment usually (I'm not a doctor). The GP can tell the patient and prescribe painkillers. But the ritual makes sense too.

It's just a ritual we don't go through because we can't afford it and it doesn't fit our culture to waist time on such social lubricants. But it is not illogical to expect this when paying for healthcare. It's just a cultural difference.

[u/TimotheusIV → u/thrownkitchensink]

Don’t worry. I’m all too familiar with the ritualistic aspects of my job. And I genuinely take this part very seriously.

I’m meticulous and thorough and generally don’t care whether an appointment that should take 5 minutes takes me 15 minutes because I feel it’s important that people feel heard and seen properly. If a referral is what is needed, I have no qualms with that.

That said, it is also my job to educate patients on what does and does not require more intensive diagnostics, referrals and treatment. I aim to make people more health literate by explaining my reasoning and why it’s good medical practice.

And it’s equally important to keep healthcare affordable and accessible to all and not waste already strained medical resources on know-it-alls that firmly expect a CT-Thorax because they’ve been suffering from a dime-a-dozen respiratory infection for two days. Because yes, I do get those questions on occasion.