In light of the various public discourse on the medical profession, I wish to ponder on what we should expect and accept as a patient.

Has the business model as practiced by general practitioners (GP) slowly become outdated? Or does it merely need some infusion of customer-service culture?

I really believe GPs are dinosaurs just waiting for extinction as the demands of modern life will see the advent mini-hospitals or similar - not GPs, where the furniture and magazines date back to prehistoric days.

Shoddy service stories by doctors are aplenty. They also don't stock many current medicines so perhaps it is time for them to stop dispensing and leave it to the pharmacist.

The bit that infuriates me is that many GPs think that we only go to them to get medical certificates (MCs). In fact many of them only exist because they are on the panel of clinic for companies.

Of course this twilight zone of shoddy service is not inhabited by GPs only. A colleague narrated a case of a consultant who requires patients to turn up at only one set time - 3pm - because she does not like to make appointments. The patients have to come at that time whether they like it or not.

Then there is the incidence of a specialist who apparently quickly puts a patient's medical chart down once he knows the patient has terminal illness - he does not wish to waste his time, you see.

We all know of our trip to hell in dealing with doctors - not all of them are bad but not all of them are nice either. The bit I find always puzzling is that we patients are paying them, so surely they must be extra nice to us right?

Perhaps doctors should be made to attend compulsory customer services courses which I am sure they don't have at medical colleges.