Trivial pursuits

TVScope: Street Doctors BBC 1, 7pm Thursday, 22nd February

TVScope:Street Doctors BBC 1, 7pm Thursday, 22nd February

Have you ever developed a niggly health problem and not have the time to visit your GP to check it out? Or perhaps you didn't make an appointment because you were too embarrassed.

Well, if this sounds like you then you might be a candidate for Street Doctors, a programme which promises to take the pain and anxiety out of visiting the GP.

Last Thursday night saw the team of four doctors wander the streets of Leeds touting for patients. The format is one where instead of the patient coming to see the doctor, the doctor goes to see the patient.

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But rather than providing house calls as one might expect, patients are examined and treated wherever the doctor happens to meet them. For some this happened to be on a fork lift truck in the scrap yard where they worked, while for others it was in the local shopping centre, the theatre or at the local boxing club.

The range of problems dealt with in this episode included a back problem, anxiety and depression, bursitis, digestive problems and athlete's foot. Patients listed their symptoms to the doctor and then submitted themselves to examination in front of work mates and general onlookers.

Having backs and tummies examined in full view of the passing public may not sound like something most of us would willingly submit to, but there was no shortage of volunteers ready to reveal their wobbly bits and fungus- infected feet on camera.

With more than a passing nod to a reality TV format, Street Doctors did include some helpful snippets of health advice such as how to manage depression or digestive problems.

But it was also awash with facts and figures about the dire state of the population's health and the risks of dying from one disease or another.

So there is a risk that this approach may do little to alleviate anxiety and instead achieve the opposite and create a population of "worried well", those who are essentially well but who worry unnecessarily about their health.

Although I'm sure the programme aimed to demystify medicine and make medics seem more approachable, it left me a little uneasy about personal medical problems being trivialised for popular entertainment.

Review by Marion Kerr, an occupational therapist