Mr John Maskell, Patient's Coach
Going to Joint School, was in my opinion, as an observer, a great step forward.
My underlying impressions were that it takes away the ghosts and the fears, and all the nasties that people have at the back of their mind. All these nasty stories, as I say, you only hear the bad bits, you never hear the good bits, and when I came in, from my previous research I was reasonably well informed.
Joint School put you on a much, much wider plateau. And I‘d never researched various anaesthetics, I’d not researched many parts, I’d never had the chance to pick up and handle and play with the various parts on offer; knees, hips, whatever, I’d only ever seen pictures of them and short videos of them.
Also what was very good was that the medical staff were at pains to put you at ease and explain everything they could, all the way down from the ward sister to the physiotherapist, the orthopaedic surgeon through the anaesthetist.
It took away all the fears and it left you well informed. And I feel that must take a lot of the fear and anxiety away from the patient going in to such an operation. And by making you better informed, mentally you were better prepared to go into the operation, and if you followed their advice, as with the exercises, you were physically better prepared to go into the operation.
I was better prepared to look after Mary this time.