Venting

I got a phone call from my GP yesterday afternoon. She was ringing to let me know the results of some blood tests I had done earlier this week. Fortunately it was all good news.

However, she also wanted to clear something else that was on her mind.

Craig and I see her together every month and have done so since Kees died last year in March. Every month like clockwork, a half-hour appointment. Our most recent appointment was last Friday.

We had seen our obstetrician the day before our GP appointment with the usual results. Everything looks fine. Oh, you have some pains? That's normal. That's what they say about everything. The stock-standard answer is either (i) every pregnancy is different or (ii) that's normal.

So when I saw my GP I expressed my dissatisfaction about the stock-standard answers. I also expressed my opinion about my general dissatisfaction with the Dutch medical system. I was also pretty peeved with her (my GP) that we had to wait for 30 minutes for our appointment. Anyway, appointment finished, and that was that (I thought).

So when I spoke to her yesterday she wanted to let me know that she was "unhappy" about the way our last appointment went. That she doesn't like going home feeling "unhappy" about her work. That she didn't like leaving it like that. That she doesn't like to take bad feelings home with her. And more along the same lines.

I was quite stunned. I didn't know what to say. I mean, how she feels is really not my problem. She's my GP. It's her job to listen to my concerns about my health and my baby's health. She knows my history. She's been treating me for over two years. She's spoken to my psychologist about me.

At first my response was nothing. Then, as she was clearly waiting for me to say something, I asked what she wanted from me. So she started again about feeling that she's doing her job properly but that I was obviously unhappy, so that meant she had bad feelings at the end of the day. And that perhaps we should see someone else. And that we were quite unreasonable to expect her to be more on time. (We were her last patients of the day, there was no-one else in the waiting-room.) She feels that she's been more than generous with her time (we always book double appointments and never go over our time.) So we should feel free to go somewhere else if we feel the need to.

Well, I never felt the need to until I had this conversation with her. So after my silent response didn't work and my stunned response didn't work, I went for the direct response. I said that I'd never had such an unprofessional discussion with any doctor in my life. I said that I thought it was part of her job to listen to my health-care/medical concerns. I also said that really it would certainly be better for me and Craig to see another doctor. I thanked her for calling and hung up.

Do you believe it????

For over two years I've been her patient. She treated me for depression and anxiety prior to my pregnancy with Kees, as well as after. She's prescribed anti-D's and other medication. She knows my history. And yet she feels that she's within her rights to ring me at home and tell me that I'm making her job miserable and she can't leave her job at the office but takes it home with her. (I told her that I'd learned to leave my job at the office a long time ago, as most professionals do.)

I know that GP's in this country are generally SHITE. If you can find any GP who is a hands-on medical professional you're doing pretty well. Our GP's practice is a good one. They even take blood samples, urine samples, remove moles (and the like) and generally do stuff that NO GP's in this country do.

But what am I supposed to do when she rings me at home to tell me that our appointments make her miserable? That she feels like we are being unreasonable? That we are making her feel unhappy when she goes home at the end of the day??? What???

I think I will walk away from this one. There's nothing I can say or do that I will be happy to live with. I'm still in shock at having such a personal and unprofessional conversation with my GP.