The Paper Mountain

One of the complaints made by doctors facing litigation or the General Medical Council is  always about the vast quantities of paper that accumulates. During my A Levels, I used to be Little Miss Tidy. Everything was lovely, neat, and pristine and my room smelt of country gardens. Seriously, even my pencils were sharpened. 

As medical school came, the paper mountain started to build. Of course, after I finished my finals, I set the entire amount of paper on fire at the bottom of the garden and used it as compost. 

Then came the GMC. Bloody hell, I have never seen so much paper accumulate in such a short time.  It was like a paper version of the Dam Busters. There were mountains of it. Anyone would think I had a hearing or something as opposed to minor piddly issues being screened out. 

The GMC's harassment of me has been protracted. I wouldn't mind so much bar the fact that I am now married to paper. I have tried divorce proceedings but it doesn't work. Each sheet of paper is vital because I not only use the data in my issues but that of colleagues and friends. Every three months, I tidy up only for the paper to multiply, breed and expand. Some kind of paper binary fission going on there. Each year there is less and less floor space.

Today, I returned home only to find paper everywhere, bundles, documents, books, case law. For three years, I have tried to be normal. I have tried desperately to tidy up, sort out, be human. I am though surrounded by this paper mountain. Last month, I even tried to persuade the GMC to do everything electronically. That doesn't work as the GMC has no idea of recycling, efficiency or reducing the space of paper storage. There is an interesting post on the GMC's spending budget for paper. Apparently, they throw £48,000 on paper per year.  

Training the GMC on paper recycling and efficiency has been difficult. Every so often I end up with more paper that I have to then file. The GMC doesn't listen to " please forward all correspondence electronically". Oh no, they insist on sending that one more sheet of conqueror paper.

Of course, at the peak of my litigation, I had no option but to sleep with my files as my hospital room had no space left. I regularly travelled in my Ford Fiesta - the hatchback filled with files, books, boxes and more GMC crap as I used to all it. Even worse, the papers had made their way to my bath and the toilet. Things had got so bad in 2004 that I was reading case law in the bathroom because I just didn't have time between oncalls, litigation and lawyers.

One day,  I had left my car outside with said files and a new fax machine I had purchased just to communicate with my lawyers. I was robbed in Great Yarmouth - the fax machine had disappeared BUT the robbers never stole the GMC papers! Darn. Seriously, if I am going to have robbers, why aren't they proper robbers who take the GMC papers and read them in detail so they too have to suffer the pain of boredom that we doctors do. You just can't get the right quality of robbers these days! 

So, since 2004, I have had a paper mountain and numerous mole hills growing into mountains. I have no idea what to do with it  apart from marry a rich millionaire who will build me a castle to store these papers. This is what they don't tell you at the Careers Advisory Center when you are 17. This deficiency in my education and my inability to snare millionaires at the local UK whistleblower sewer means I shall remain married to my paper mountains. I shall develop a way to divorce it once and for all. Perhaps by the age of 40, I might just turn into a average normal human being without a paper mountain accompanying me everywhere.