Women's stuff and GPs

I was having some bleeding in between periods.  I rang my GP and got and appointment the same day.  My experience with the practice I belong to is that if you ring on the day and are unwell that day you always get an appointment.  If its an appointment where you want to go talk about something that's not pressing or have some sort of check up then you have to book for something in the future.  In other words, most daily appointments are held for people who require attention that day.

As my GP was a man, he referred me to his female colleague in the same practice who does "Well Woman" appointments and that was just a question of going back out to reception and booking in with her for later that day.   There was no question at this point of needing to refer me to the ob/gyn.

She examined me, did my pap smear which was due, and referred me over to the hospital for an ultrasound scan.   That came up the same week and the scan showed that I had a small fibroid.  The results were told to me as they showed up on the screen - there was no waiting and the report sent back to my GP.

I know that how quickly I got seen depended on which GP practice I'm signed up to.  In the old days (the 1980s and before) who the doctor was depended in where I lived.  Now there is a choice about which practice I join and its up to me how much traveling I want to do.  There are 82 GP practices in my county.  Within each practice there can be several doctors and I was encouraged to pick the doctor I wanted within that practice.   Mine has 10 to choose from - 6 women and 4 men.

I chose my doctor because he's the one I went to when I was first pregnant with my oldest daughter 20 years ago.  I like his practical, no nonsense sensible nature.  I liked the fact that instead of constantly trying to push antibiotics on my family he'd say things like "well that's a virus and will clear up in a week - why would you want to take a drug for that?" 

Our practice has very young doctors (who are great and enthusiastic and take their time and ask a lot of really useful questions) and older doctors who have been there many years and are sensible and experienced and a good mix of men and women.   There are several doctors I think personally are useless (I liken seeing them to going to a bakery for health care) who I always avoid.  But this is all within one practice.