I met a colleague in an operating theatre (I was watching an operation on a patient of mine) whom I hadn’t met in a very long while. We spoke about how we had all got on over the years. The subject came around to me being a GP, and he an anaesthetist. And then he asked me for some freebie advice, which I was happy to give. He asked about muscle cramps – I suggested magnesium. Then I asked him: “do you take fish oil?” “No”. “How about Vitamin D?” “No”. “Any other minerals or vitamins?” “no”. “What’s wrong with you?”, I asked, and he laughed. It was the first time he knew of where someone had asked what was wrong with them when they weren’t taking anything.
Isn’t that a sign of the times. That (a) things have changed in terms of what people take now and that it appears that we DO have to take supplements; (b) that as a medical person he wasn’t apparently aware of this, and that he may need to supplement his diet. As a GP I am constantly exposed to this kind of thing. How many specialists operate in the cocoon and never get to know about this. It also means he probably doesn’t have his own GP. How many of us still don’t?
Another blog, another time.
