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45College might improve the image of the anaesthetist, yet the pathologist and the gynaecologist, who have such a college, fared no better than the anaesthetist.The chances that the public might eventually become better informed by its own efforts seem remote. At the end of the questionnaire, patients were given the opportunity to ask questions. At this point, those who had given the most wildly inaccurate answers generally displayed an unquenchable thirst for ignorance. Several of them said that they didn't know anything about this sort of thing, and they didn't really want to know.This last statement would seem to be highly relevant. Does it really matter what the public thinks? As Walter Savage Landor put it, 'We cannot a t once catch the applause of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.'
SummaryOne hundred hospital patients were given a questionnaire, designed to assess their beliefs about the anaesthetist in relationship t o other workers in the United Kingdom national health service. The results of this survey, and the comments passed at a simultaneous interview, are discussed.
Key wordsEDUCATION; patients. It has long been thought that doctors, and in particular Anaesthetists, fail to talk to their patients. This project was devised to determine how much patients know about their anaesthetist and the work he does. Traditionally patients know little about anaesthetists but with the upsurge of public interest in medical matters fostered by the media, was this ignorance about anaesthetists still widespread?
Patients and methodsA questionnaire was designed and patients were seen at random before their operation. In all, 100 questionnaires were completed by fifty men and fifty women. Two hospitals in Birmingham were used to collect the data, namely the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Women's Hospital. Patients were asked if they had had any previous operations to see if this made any difference to their knowledge. Finally, they were asked for the occupation of the head of the household to see if social class made any difference. Patients were divided into one of three social classes, namely upper social class (social class I and II), middle social class (social class Ill), and lower social class (social class I V and V).' There were twenty-two in the upper social class, fifty-three in the middle and twenty-five in the lower social class. This unusual distribution of patients is because the Women's and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals have traditionally been middle class hospitals.
ResultsOf the 100 patients seen, SO% thought the anaesthetist was a doctor. The results are shown in Table 1, On dividing the hundred patients into male and female again 50% of each group thought the anaesthetist was a doctor. Similarly, this figure was not altered in those who had previously undergone operations. However, 68% of those in the upper social class thought an anaesthetist was a doctor, compared to 48% in the middle and 40% in the lower social classes, as shown in Table 1.Patients were asked how they thought ...
