Doctors should undergo manual handling training

Abstract

Career Focus needs you. We welcome your rapid responses, whether in direct response to an article in Career Focus or as a way of sharing your own ideas and experiences. We are especially interested in upbeat ideas from which other doctors can benefit. As long as it isn't libellous or offensive, we'll post it. We print a selection on our letters page. How many times have you been asked to lift a patient? Traditionally, members of the medical profession have mostly been men, and, by implication, physically strong. Both genders can sustain injuries, however, as we all know from trying to treat them. Nurses often assume that doctors have the same mandatory training that they do. It is very difficult to turn round to them and say, “I haven't got the certificate for that,” even though that is one of their own tactics. Patients also assume that you can, “just help me up, love,” and grab your arm. Situations in which doctors may find themselves include hitching a patient up the bed, transferring a patient from a trolley to the operating table, holding a lower limb during a hip replacement operation, performing an interventional obstetric procedure, and pulling a wheelchair (you soon learn that they go all over …