About this GP

[slightlyconfused85]

Now before I start I generally think Gps are amazing people, I'm not dissing the profession. Today, however, I booked an appointment to get the contraceptive pill after the birth of my 2nd child. I was given an appointment with a locum who explained my options to me, then said he didn't prescribe contraception for ethical reasons. I then had to wait 45 minutes for another gp to be able to fit me in to prescribe this for me. Aibu to think that if the gp surgery is going to have locums that won't do this then they could have let me know on the phone when I booked? I know the receptionist didn't know what I wanted but they could say if it's an appointment to discuss contraception then say and we will find a different GP. Had loads of time wasted today and feeling (probably irrationally) irritable about it!

[CoogerAndDark]

Not even particularly dodgy ones. Can get Noristherone online and I dare say others. Just lie on the forms and voila!
Bugger you if you aren't suited to it. At least some GP who doesn't like women having control of their reproductive cycle doesn't have to compromise their Ethics.

[redbinneo]

Reading threads like this just reinforces my view that GPs are just highly paid garage mechanics.
Their diagnosis is usually questionable, they only know about one make and model, and they are only in it for the cash. the only difference is that mechanics aren't quite as patronising.

[TenForward82]

IMHO there are some great GPs. But too many allow themselves to get ground down by idiot patients, then start assuming everyone is an idiot.

[bumbleymummy]

Ten. The ones Cat alluded to in her post.

[TenForward82]

Sorry, are we talking about the abortions, the contraceptions, or the concentration camp?

[Jengnr]

Any GP that refuses to grant access to medical treatment or procedures based on their personal beliefs is a disgrace. I don't care if they pass it on to a colleague so they can pretend they've done the right thing. It's disgusting and they're in the wrong job.

[CoogerAndDark]

The ones equating termination to what happened in concentration camps, bumbley?

That's ludicrous. Hope you don't subscribe to such tin foil hat woman-hating bollocks or there's no point debating this with you.

[Notabeararaccoon]

I have to say this sort of thing makes me cross, and I agree with pp who say ftfo and do something else if you don't like it. I also agree that it (sadly) appears a predominantly male thing. Years ago (says ye olde crone) there was a fuss about certain contraceptive pills and increased risk of thrombosis. I was on one of those pills. I never did get on well with loads of contraceptive pills, so to find one that didn't send me crazy with hormones or make me sick as a dog was always challenging. When I went for a repeat prescription, my gp sat and had a chat about how I felt about using pill with higher risk. I said I was fine about it, I felt fine, I had no side effects etc. He (and he was a great gp) agreed and told me the increased risk of thrombosis was TEN TIMES HIGHER as a result of pregnancy (normal, standard pregnancy) than being on the particular pill I was on. So many misogynist dicks still seem to think we live in the dark ages and they get to dictate what happens with women's bodies. Fuck off, you had your thousands of years assholes, now we have a bit of say which gives us more power.

. Sorry, slight feminist rant. But you only have to spend five minutes on the relationship board to see countless women left literally holding the baby/ies because some bloke is choosing to exercise economic or emotional power over some poor woman. Tits who think they should be able to dictate what happens with anyone's body other than their own should not be in a position to influence it. Go study fucking genetics in a lab, or disease research in a lab, or germ research IN A FUCKING LAB and stop trying to affect other people's lives. Jerk.

And now I feel marginally better.

[bumbleymummy]

I haven't seen anyone equating terminations to what happened in concentration camps. I've seen someone give an example of what can when doctors leave their ethics at the door as many of you are suggesting.

[bumbleymummy]

What can happen when...

[CoogerAndDark]

Nope, that's what happens when we allow Drs to bring their own personal ethics or faith into medical decisions. I don't want them to do that. I don't think they should be Drs if they can't do that.

[CoogerAndDark]

Can'T leave those ethical or faith decisions behind them, that is.

[TenForward82]

Sorry bumbley, without a concrete example I'm finding it very hard to take your POV seriously.

As we've already established, we're talking about the difference between legal and illegal practices. The two aren't even comparable, and to continue to compare them looks like grasping at straws.

For example, I wouldn't suggest that any doctor in the UK today participate in assisted death, because it's not currently legal.

[peppapissinpig]

Sorry haven't had time to read right through but your story reminds me of an incident when I was about 24 and my period was late. Did a test and it showed positive. I was hysterical with fear (although in a solid relationship with now DH).
No way was I ready to be a mother.

Got emergency late night appointment with a locum GP who proceeded to lecture me on sex before marriage and then announced that if I was pregnant but thinking termination he wouldn't be able to help for ethical reasons ????.

When all I wanted was a sympathetic ear and another pg test I was sent off with a flea in my ear and told to come back in the morning.
Spent the whole night a sobbing mess.
At the time I just accepted what he said and was so pathetically grateful when I realised I wasn't pregnant I never took it any further.

Now...... I'd tell him to shove his ethics right up where the sun don't shine. Patronising, arrogant bastard ????

[TenForward82]

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.

[AnotherTimeMaybe]

About 20 years ago I went to the GP as I had an irritation down there , he was so appalled I was chewing a gum he actually didn't help me, he told me to go to the hospital
I couldn't be bothered with this shit , I went private, paid a bloody fortune but they sorted me out
What a fantastic professional eh? Idiots doing the wrong job!

[Pneumometer]

As we've already established, we're talking about the difference between legal and illegal practices.

It isn't that simple. At the time, the doctors who worked on (say) the Dachau Hypothermia Experiments were acting legally, under the instructions of what they would have regarded as a lawful government. Unlike the gibbering lunatics who were just torturers dressed up in white coats, the project was solving a real problem (survival suits for ditched aircrew). The ethics are now, of course, utterly disgraceful, and the researchers involved were lucky not to be hung after the war, but the output from that appalling work is now widely cited. It probably shouldn't be (there's a powerful demolition of the claim that the work was competent here) but for the researchers involved, they would not have regarded it as illegal.

[The80sweregreat]

I think you should write to the practice manager and complain. F this wanker had to give birth or worry about contraception, i bet he would soon change his tune
Not dissing GPs , but that is really out of order.
No wonder you were fuming.

[TenForward82]

I think the ethics were utterly disgraceful then, in any other government than one run by a crazy person. It is VERY dangerous to start comparing women's contraceptive rights to the slide of ethics that enabled torture and murder.

[Pneumometer]

It is VERY dangerous to start comparing women's contraceptive rights to the slide of ethics that enabled torture and murder.

Absolutely. But I don't think the question of whether the acts are legal or illegal is relevant.

Suppose that a south American doctor provides an abortion to a 10 year old that has been raped in a country where all abortion is illegal. Would you say his behaviour was therefore inherently unethical? I wouldn't, and I suspect you wouldn't either.

[TenForward82]

Hmm, fair point. Again, my ideal world scenario, abortion and contraception would be freely available worldwide, as would assisted dying. I can dream!

[bumbleymummy]

Contraception is legal in NI. Women don't travel to Scotland for it.

[ElkeDagMeisje]

I wonder where that GP's ethical concerns would be if he put off a very young or vulnerable patient from seeking contraception, and they died from a pregnancy or maternity-related condition? ie if a causal trail could be proven that a patient had gone to him, asked for contraception, he had refused, the patient had been advised to see another GP at the practice for it, had failed to do so, got pregnant within a relevant time scale and thereafter died or even suffered life-changing issues.

Its hardly beyond the realms of possibility. If a doctor goes to all the bother of thinking about and exercising such ethical concerns, you would reasonably assume they have also considered the consequences of their actions.

What if the patient deterred from contraception were of unusually fragile mind or suffered from an anxiety-based disorder? Would that GP be negligent? Quite likely.

The GMC really need to get their house in order, and applicants for medical degrees need to be better screened to sift this sort of unacceptable imposition of personal ethical beliefs which is unacceptable in the society we live in. You have to question whether there is a bit of psychosis going on there, in terms of excessive belief in their own ego, and a bit of a God complex. Its not their decision to make, whatever their personal beliefs may be.

[CatWithKittens]

The "ethical" beliefs against contraception and abortion rely on the "life at any cost" line of thinking, which ignores the rights of the main patient: the woman in front of them.
But many of those who have problems with abortion see not just the "main patient" but also the one whom the law says has no rights. They believe that law to be wrong and cannot conscientiously follow it - I think that is something which they are entitled to do without the sort of criticisim heaped on them upthread.

Following medical practices allowed by law is not unprincipled Well, of course, that assumes that all laws always follow proper principles and puts lawmakers above moral or ethical criticism. Now where have I heard something like that before? And was it from the sort of society to which I wish to belong? Did we not hang people at the end of the war because they had followed the dictates of law without stopping to ask if it was right? People have to be entitled, especially perhaps where life and death is concerned, to say I will have nothing to do with this, even if the law permits it, even if the law requires it. If euthanasia is permitted would the posters who are criticising doctors require them to carry that out as well because people have been given a right to kill themselves? Would they require the conscientious objector to fight and kill because other people have a right to be defended?