Dr Janet Gardner-Medwin 2018-06-03 Person 1 5 0

We were referred  to Dr Gardner Medwin after moving to a new area and after our teenage child had been rapidly worsening in health with no explanation of why. The excellent GP, who we trusted explicitly, was unsure if the issues our child was experiencing were related to existing family medical troubles or something totally unrelated, however he stressed his opinions through his long standing knowledge of our child & family in his referral in the hope to rectify the issue promptly. The purpose of our referral  was to ascertain why this was happening to our child and quickly find a way to help move to a prognosis and if necessary treatment of our child. We hoped with such a distinguished and published Specialist we were in good hands. Sadly we have not felt this to be true. Dr Janet Gardner Medwin maybe very good at writing papers & being published in journals directed at her peers, but when it comes to explaining her reasons for treatments or even whether she has a diagnosis at all, to both her child patients and parents / guardians, she fails miserably. Her inability to listen to a younger patient ( in our case a young teenager) while they explain, often quite crudely what is wrong and why, and also then ignore the parents who try to explain in a more cohesive manner, leaves her grasping at straws. In our experience, Dr Medwin Gardener ignored any and all attempts on repeat visits to clarify our childs needs as per the original referral, and the issues continued to fall on deaf ears. Having pushed back for a better service for our child (after umpteen visits to clinic and months with little to no changes in care.) and who was now in agony daily and having been told at one point to mentally block the  "Chronic Pain"  and stop all pain killers prescribed until the next appointment (which was weeks away), we finally agreed that in order to get to the bottom of our childs problems, they would need to stay in hospital for a week allowing multiple teams to run tests and checks to finally find a prognosis and best plan of action moving forward quickly. With all departments & staff in on the same days the plan was to save time and multiple repeat visits and progress our childs care more quickly after the previous delays. The first planned week was impossible due to a move, however the next date was agreed and we were to expect an itinerary to help us plan with the team the best way forward for our child. The Itinerary didnt appear until the Friday before the Monday admission, and we then recieved a call from Dr Gardner Medwin suggesting we should get our child in on Sunday instead or she couldn't secure the bed... Looking at the Itinerary and email, the plan was different to that discussed,  and was yet again totally void of covering our childs needs to find a prognosis, reduce serious pain and manage their symptoms better. Contact with Dr Janet Gardner Medwin as requested, was to be first by email on the Friday, with responses and feedback to the plan and itinerary to which she would reply by call after her days appointments. We sent a reply, it questioned the listed actions and how she arrived back at the original issues which were yet again wrong (the straws grasped early on when she failed to listen to our child or us as parents). It was clear we were not moving forward at all, and that our childs "Specialist" was ignorant to the facts that were clear as day. We were now convinced that Dr Janet Gardner Medwin was not going to be the right Specialist for our child and requested an independent Second opinion stating we had no confidence in her treatment & care. Her response was to call as planned, but clearly she did not take to our questions or request for a second opinion. Instead she blocked all requests to clarify her position, prefering to avoid direct questions time and time again, it was clear to us that Dr Gardner Medwins communication skills were not as good as they could be, and it seemed that maybe what we were looking for was simply lost in translation, so we kept trying to reach an understanding, to bring the conversation back to basics so we as parents could to try and understand how she arrived at her decisions. This just seemed to infuriate Dr Janet Gardner Medwin, and no matter how many times we explained our motives for asking the questions we did,  our questions and requests for clarification were obviously not acceptable, Dr Janet Gardner Medwin even went as far as to deny our simple request to email us with which tests and examinations had provided her with the current thinking on our childs medical issues. This was our way of clearing things up cleanly, we needed to understand what was happening and our child needed to understand too, but it was clear that the phonecall was not having a productive result. Unfortunately this also had the opposite result and Dr Janet Gardner Medwin even went as far as to state that " if you think i'm wasting hours of my time explaining things by email to you on a Friday night at almost 6pm your wrong, it's not going to happen!" This was roughly 7 minutes into our call and closer to 17:20 not 6pm. She also seemed to forget that we were only speaking this late in the day due to her late in the process itinerary and her commitments. This call continued for around 40 minutes, where Dr Janet Gardner Medwin flicked between personalities, one minute seeming to understand why we were requesting more information and a better understanding of our childs care, the next, never giving a straight answer or listening to our concerns without rudely talking over us. She would then tow the NHS line that we were entitled to a second opinion, although the door was never closed and the next she would start name calling and making accusations and suggestions that we were being unreasonable. The whole phone call seemed to be a game with the sole purpose of covering  Dr Janet Gardner Medwins behind, while making us as the parents out to be unreasonable. It's all patients and their respective guardians right to question our doctors in order to better understand the reason for tests and treatments, without it we lose trust and more importantly we are robbed if the care we should expect from our NHS. Dr's need to remember this is part of their job, and when a patient or parent requires or requests clarity, it's because they either didn't understand the way it was explained or it simply wasn't explained in the first place. This is not an attack to which you must defend yourself, this is a chance to improve your communication and people skills and offer the trust we as patients and parents of patients require. Your title alone does not justify blind faith, your ability to diagnose and then explain that diagnosis, and if needs be the best treatment moving forward will. We have been fortunate to meet many fantastic Nurses, Doctor's & Specialists over the years, however there are a few who hide behind legislation originally setup to protect staff from real threats at their place of work. This is not why it was put in place, and those hiding behind it while failing patients should feel ashamed. Threatening to use this legislation as a way of defending yourself from a legitimate complaint is also disgusting. We're pleased this online review service has allowed us to highlight the issues we've faced, especially after being told any complaint made would be swept away with false accusations against us. As for Dr Janet Gardner Medwin, you'll have to make your own mind up. We can only offer our personal experience with her. It seems some Doctors/ Specialists are only after getting a reputation that can be published, while others get their job satisfaction from knowing they did everything possible for their patients.