Melchett:
A couple of years ago a friend of mine went for his medical & when the doctor came to the section on alcohol he asked how many units he drank, my friend said he had 2 or 3 cans each night after work whilst watching TV.
Nothing more was said everything seemed fine, the doctor filled out his part of the form & gave it back to my mate… it was only when he got outside the surgery & checked that he noticed the doctor had put “ALCOHOL DEPENDENT” on the form!
I don’t know if doctors have guidelines from the DVLA on how much alcohol is permitted or if it’s just each doctors opinion but it’s not worth being too honest if you know what I mean
There are guidelines to alcohol consumption, for men it’s a maximum of about 21 units a week and for women only 14 units a week.
A pint is 2 units, so 2 cans a night would be about 28 units a week, so that’s why he was considered alcohol dependant.
Mine consisted mostly of a debate around my blood pressure which was higher than normal. That was probably due to the way the doc. was filling the form in. We had a spat over what constituted an eye exam. I read perfectly to the bottom of the Snelling eye test chart with both eyes and then each eye individually. She then started waffling about an opticians report!! This despite her having on my notes a 6 month old report from a consultant stating that my eyesight was spot on after an eyelid problem had caused an outpatient visit which she referred me for.
She then had to discuss this with another GP who told her that the Snelling chart was all I needed to ascertain eyesight is OK.
The rest of the questions she was asking me if I had ever suffered from x, y and z! Naturally I said no and of course I am being honest.
Still it only cost £50 which seems a lot less than some are quoting here.
i guess the medical is for a doctor a lot like reversing a truck into a loading bay.
Different drivers will do things a different way to get the same result, the same as some doctors might use one method to satisfy them you’re fit and others may use another.
Mine took 15 mins.
It consisted of an eye test, then measured my height & weight & took my blood pressure.
The rest was just filling in questions from the form.
It cost me £60 which wasn’t too bad.
He said Doctors are advised by the DVLA to charge £120!!
I went for my medical, passed on everything except eyesight which pleased me.
