With my intention to lead a healthier lifestyle, one of my goals this year was to find a family physician. So we did. And we all lived happily ever after.
Were you expecting more? I wasn’t entirely sure I needed to get into the details about finding a family doctor since it’s really not that exciting, but I suppose I could say a little more on the subject.
I made two mistakes in my previous searches: the first was narrowing my search to female physicians, and the second was ignoring the obvious choice of our previous family doctors.
I had decided early on that I only wanted to check out the women because I was tired of being poked and prodded by inconsiderate male doctors… as I’m sure many women can relate. I figured a woman would show a tad more compassion, considering visiting the doctor is not on my list of “fun things to do when I get to leave work early.” Turns out, though, that taking the relatively long number of female family physicians out there, and then subtracting the number that aren’t actually taking patients right now, left me with very few choices. I was annoyed so I shuffled between ignoring the problem for as long as I could and dealing begrudgingly with Medicentres when the need arose. The thing is that not all doctors are dicks though (literally or figuratively, take your pick), so eliminating one whole segment of the physician population because they have one just didn’t make sense. And it honestly made things more frustrating than they needed to be.
The other thing my females-only-attitude did was eliminate the two strongest prospects – both Tavis and my previous family doctors, who also happen to be male. Our families both grew up around the same area we live in now, and our parents and some siblings still visit those same doctors. The obvious question is why, then, did we stop? Well, we moved away from home and started going to school and lived without vehicles for a number of years. And not being able to easily to see our family docs, nor getting our appointments made for us by our mothers (because we were adults, after all!), meant that we let the yearly visits fall by the wayside. But now we have a vehicle and, more importantly, the drive to make the effort, so the solution seemed to present itself.
The challenge then lay with the fact that neither of us had actually been to see our original family physician since before the days of electronic record keeping… seriously. Wow saying that makes me feel WAY older than 30! We’re living in a crazy generation I tell you, when we can both remember a day of paper files and small TVs and typewriters, and yet now live so dependently on technology… but I digress. Where was I? Oh yes…
So when I called our separate family clinics I was told immediately that since we didn’t have an electronic file, it was unlikely that we’d be able to get in to see our original family docs. So I turned on the charm. I brought up the history and the fact that many of the immediate family are still patients there and that I’d buy them pretty things if they changed their minds. Well maybe not that last bit. And the lovely secretaries agreed to confer with the docs and let me know. My doc said no because he wasn’t taking any new patients. Boo. Thankfully Tavis’ doc said yes because of Tavis’ family history and, I think, really liking my in-laws. I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother-in-law put in a good word for us. Either way, we were in!
So we visited our new family physician the other day and it went great. He was incredibly personable, and showed a knack for making things completely comfortable; I’m sure most people would agree that in those delicate moments, the potential for awkwardness abounds! We were very happy with our appointment, and now that it’s all said and done this almost seemed like the easiest goal to meet yet! Happily ever after, indeed.
S
Life Loofah 