Confessions of a GP

Darryl

‘What can I do for you today, Darryl?’

‘’Allo Dr Daniels. How are you?’

‘Fine, thank you, Darryl.’

‘I ’ope you’re ’aving a good day and that.’

Darryl was a local thug who had somehow avoided ever having been locked up despite years of fights, assaults and petty crime. He tended to be rude and demanding so his less than impressive attempt at being charming meant that he must have wanted something.

‘I need a letter to say I couldn’t go to my community service last Thursday.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I had bad flu.’

It annoys me when people say they have flu when actually they have a bit of a cold. However, it wasn’t the time to correct Darryl. He was significantly bigger than me and I have naturally cowardly tendencies.

‘Are you still unwell?’

‘No, I’m better now.’

‘Well, why didn’t you come in at the time you were unwell?’

‘I phoned up the receptionist and she told me that there were no appointments available except for emergencies. She also told me that my symptoms were probably viral and I should take some paracetamol and go to bed.’

We had clearly trained our receptionists too well and now Darryl had worked out how to get out of his community service without getting in the shit.

‘I didn’t want to waste an emergency appointment and that.’

How noble of you, Darryl. Such a shame that your high sense of altruistic morals couldn’t have been better demonstrated when you were kicking the shit out of some poor lad who’d accidentally spilt your pint. (I thought this rather than said it, for obvious reasons.)

I really didn’t want to write a letter for Darryl. I also had had a bit of man flu that Thursday. I had ventured in and spent the day feeling miserable. I didn’t see why Darryl couldn’t have done the same. I imagine he had a few beers the night before and decided to give the leaf sweeping a miss for the day, knowing he could hoodwink some foolish GP into writing a letter to get him off the hook.

‘My probation officer says I need a letter and that. I’m on my last warning for missing community service days. They’re threatening to take me back to court and put me away.’

So there I was, writing a letter as if to excuse my child from doing PE at school:

This was the letter I would love to have written. One day I will write it and bask in momentary satisfaction before they suspend me for unprofessional conduct and Darryl comes to my house and beats seven lumps of shit out of me. I hoped the probation officer would read between the lines of the more mundane letter that I actually wrote:

Nothing in this letter required any small degree of medical knowledge or skill, but the very fact that it was written by a doctor rather than his aunt Doris meant that Darryl would probably get off the hook with the court and avoid going to jail.