September 10th, 2008
Your Turn: Doctor’s Orders
I’ve been dealing with a storm-triggered migraine on and off for the past few days, and finally caved in yesterday and made an appointment with my doctor to have a prescription tweaked. Or rather, I made an appointment with her office. She’s on vacation. I was given the option of either of her two (male) colleagues, a referral to someone female in another office (they’re affiliated with a local hospital network, though physically separate from it) or waiting until next week. As I feel rather like someone is squeezing alternate parts of my brain with a vise grip, I chose to make an appointment with one of the guys.
As a young girl, I’d have been squeamish about seeing a male doctor. As an adult, I prefer female physicians because I believe women should support other women whenever possible, especially in fields that are still male-dominated. (If we had a female auto mechanic nearby, I’d probably take our car to her, so this isn’t just a medical thing.) When it comes to medicine, though, I think that most of the time, female doctors are better at listening to women than male doctors, and less inclined to throw drugs at a problem. (Today, I WANT someone to throw drugs at my problem, but that’s a separate issue.)
To me, preferring female physicians is much like someone whose first language isn’t English selecting a doctor who speaks their native language. Generally speaking, women speak Woman better than men do, and since I’m the kind of person who resists seeing ANY doctor until I’ve exhausted every other option (despite having pretty good insurance) I need all the help I can get.
YOUR TURN: What about you? Do you have a preference about the gender of your doctor? Does it make a difference with the TYPE of doctor (I mean, a dentist is radically different from an ob/gyn)? And how resistant are you about visiting a doctor at all?
September 11th, 2008 at 4:10 am
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