“I am coming from a long way away. Can I be seen and treated in one visit?”
Earlier this week we had an enquiry from a patient who lives a very long distance away and she enquired whether I would see her and treat her in one visit with. Now from a strict medical point of view there is no particular reason why you couldn’t see and treat somebody in one visit. The treatments are local anaesthetic they are extremely safe — serious complications are very rare — and many specialists see no problem with seeing and treating in one visit. Now I have no problem with that. I don’t think it is wrong. I know many very well respected and highly regarded vain specialists who have quite a significant part of the practice comprising people that they see and treat in one visit.
But quite a while ago I made the decision that I would not see and treat people in one visit. And I will tell you the reasons why. The first is that I like have to have a very thorough consultation with the patient to understand their requirements in detail. I need to get to know them a little bit and I need to know exactly what they are trying to achieve. It is unusual but rarely I do advise people not to have any treatment whatsoever. Either because their concerns about their condition progressing to something serious are unfounded or perhaps their symptoms are not due to their veins and treating their veins is very unlikely to lead to their legs feeling better –there is some other problem that I have identified –or I might form the opinion that the improvements in the appearance and cosmetic outcome that they are trying to achieve is very hard to deliver – they are very unlikely to get the improvement in the appearance of their legs they want. So I think the consultation is extremely important. I like to do a very thorough physical examination and a duplex ultrasound scan and then on that basis I can formulate a treatment plan for the patient. I need to discuss this in detail –there is often more than one treatment option and often each of them has more than 1 pro or con. They will have risks and they all have advantages and this needs to be discussed in detail. I need to be sure that the patient is likely to understand all these. They need to have sufficient time to take all this in and make a judgement. Often it is a difficult choice between one treatment option or another. And I think the consent process is very important.
I like to feel that people have understood and they have given valid consent based on all the information I have given them. And I also like to discuss with them the likelihood of success. That is the likelihood of the treatment abolishing the symptoms giving them the relief of symptoms that they want or the likelihood of the treatment giving them the improvement in the appearance that they want. All of that takes time and I think from my point of view I don’t like to have a consultation and treatment in 1 visit.
So if you’re considering see and treat in one visit then unfortunately that is not something that I will provide. There are specialists who do that and they say that they have a very good satisfaction rate. I hope you have found this video of interest. If you have don’t forget to subscribe by clicking on the link here and I would like to hear from you if you disagree if you think that it’s perfectly okay to see in treating one visit I would like to hear from you I would like to hear your comments. If you’re a specialist who feel strongly that I am perhaps to conservative or too cautious I would love to hear from you.
Contact me today for a confidential chat
If you’re worried about your veins and would like a confidential chat please do get in touch. I am happy to offer simple advice by telephone or email for free and without obligation.
The VeinCare Centre also offers a screening assessment with our vascular technologist. For £25 you can have a scan with Wendy Parsons. She is not a doctor and so she could not give you medical advice but she can check your deep veins and your varicose veins and give you an idea of how bad they are and what treatment options might be available. If you would like to have an appointment with Wendy please call 0800 698 3467.