To tell colleague she can't change her name?

[Professionalminefield]

To summarise:

I am a GP partner, and have been at the practice I work at for over 20 years. I changed my name when I got married, but continued to practise under my maiden name, as that's what my patients know me by.

We have a relatively new partner in the practice, who has the same first name as me. (Let's say it's Lucy). She is getting married in the summer, and is planning on changing her name both personally and professionally.

The issue is that, as I found out today, her fiancé's surname is almost identical to my professional name. My surname is Townsend, her married name is Townshend.

So our practice will have a Dr Lucy Townsend and a Dr Lucy Townshend.

This is absolutely not going to work for multiple reasons:
- Many patients, especially those who don't come that regularly, struggle to remember who their GP is, or which GP they want to see. They're not going to be able to distinguish between Dr Townsend and Dr Townshend if prompted on the phone.
- We are in an ethnically diverse area with high levels of immigration. As a result, many of our receptionists (who give out some appointments) and our patients are not native English speakers and will struggle to hear the very slight difference between the names.

WIBU to tell my colleague that she can't change her name?

Sounds like you raised in an entirely reasonable way and your colleague saw the practical difficulties your identified. Well done OP!

Am not a GP but are there practice meetings every morning? Am bemused as to why the OP didn't ask "should I have a 1-1 chat with new Lucy or bring up at our next practice meeting which is in a few hours time if she was genuinely seeking advice. The wrap up post is interesting "everyone agreed with me" rather than 'following discussion we all concluded including new Lucy that we needed to differentiate names and new Lucy will now be practicing under maiden name" same outcome very different tone imo.

Commonsense prevailed!

Ghoul - how are you getting that from the OP's update? she raised it in front of all her other colleagues (rather than discussing it first with the colleague in question, so not that reasonable) and I didn't see anything stating that this colleague "saw the practical difficulties".

Its not your place to tell anyone what their name should be it doesn't matter how long you've been working there. I did tell the new girl who has just started she couldn't be called Jane just because my name is Jane and she just has to lump it, you'll have employment tribunals on your hands if you try!

She’s probably already made the decision to change her name before she took the job- why should that change? Legally she’s free to do what she likes in regards to her name. Your decision to continue to use your maiden name professionally was and remains to be just as valid as hers to change it.

I understand how difficult this may be but reality is you can’t stop it from happening and YABU to expect to tell her she can’t do something which is within her rights to do

@dad don't be ridiculous. ost women who change their name just do it because of convention (with a dose of sentimentality) I find it an oppressive but if she doesn't she still can in her personal life anyway

I certainly didn't imply that she'd be relieved, rather that she'd get over it once she considered the impracticality in the specific work scenario.

Of course it's her right - indeed anyone's - at the point of marriage or not - to change their name as they wish. Would everyone be so adamant her decision to do so wasn't a problem had another partner just decided on the name?

What bothers me is that if new Lucy had gone with her married name then a quick google would have identified the GP practice concerned. Not very professional at all OP.
I totally get your point but your attitude sucks.

Really LiteraryDevil? What search terms would you enter on Google?

OK, sorry if I inferred that you thought she would be relieved. I read your line "I'm sure the other Dr will not be devastated not to conform to sentiment and patriarchy" as portraying the doctor as saying "phew! there I was helplessly conforming to sentiment and patriarchy, and now I don't have to..." That struck me as ridiculous.

And you sound as horrible as her btw.

Waaaaaah, pweeze don't call me howwible!

If by "horrible" you mean confident, bloody good at my job & in charge then yes, I'm horrible!!

@FuckTheFuckingDailyFuckingMail

Tis true, I'm renowned for it! I'm glad you noticed.

Fanks

What bothers me is that if new Lucy had gone with her married name then a quick google would have identified the GP practice concerned.

Quietly confident that the OP didn't identify her colleague or practice in any Googlable fashion.......

Are people mad? The OP has given very good reasons why this would be hugely problematic. I bet the admin team are just thrilled!

YANBU to raise the issue, although I think the solution has to be a mutually acceptable one.

I suppose one of you could be Dr Lucy, and the other Dr Towns(h)end. That might work.

@IllustriouslyIllogical
(Slow clap.) Eew.

Myimaginary

YANBU to raise the issue, although I think the solution has to be a mutually acceptable one.

But that's what posters are mainly arguing about: not whether there are good reasons for this solution, but how the solution was arrived at. It seems heavy-handed that the OP didn't do this by talking first to the other doctor to reach a mutual agreement.

I don’t know why you’ve had so many personal attacks on this thread OP. Some really horrible comments about nurses and nurses aids too, like they’re stoopid or something, and only fit for scrubbing, not working with doctors! Shameful comments.

Maybe everyone just hates the nhs and getting an appointment with their GP, and they’ve projected every bad feeling about it onto the OP?

Seems a pity to have a go at the OP for being a successful woman who maybe felt a bit insecure about this and her recent appointment and was looking for a bit of advice, and a sounding board before she went into her meeting, but that’s a nest of vipers for you!

Glad you sorted it out with your peers OP, and congratulations again on your appointment.

her recent appointment

eh? OP has been at practice for over 20 years.

I am a GP who changed my name when I married professionally I would have been very angry if I had been told that I couldn’t change my name without any discussion.
I wanted to use same professional and personal name and although I know some disagree I saw it as a mark of respect and love for my new husband.
I think you need to sit down with your colleague and maybe with someone else and calmly discuss pros and cons in terms of your patient demographics.
You both need to be open to changes but I do not think that you can tell her what to do - that is not personally or professionally respectful. General Practice is difficult enough without GP’s showing respect for each other.

Perhaps because the OP is coming across as such a bully, and very rude especially to Dr Lucy.

Managed to post having missed pages of the thread. . Glad to see you have a solution OP.

Totallypearshaped - I don't think anyone was having a go at the OP for being a successful woman, they were questioning her approach of stopping a more junior woman changing her name because the OP says so.

Then OP came back with an update about doing it in a meeting with other colleagues - an approach that wasn't mentioned in her first post.

The reason the OP is coming across as a bully is that lots of people have posted that she's a bully.

Zero evidence of any bullying behaviour or attitudes, any previous disagreements or indeed anything other that co-operative harmony.

I cannot sympathise with you at all, as a taxpayer I think YABU to think anyone else outside of the hallowed halls of your practice gives a fig about matters like this. How about leaving your ego aside when you become senior partner? Things could run more smoothly that way and patients might actually get a bit more value for the tax contributions taken by the NHS.

Incidentally, how would you react if a patient with the same name as you or another GP in the partnership had the temerity to turn up wanting to register with your practice, would you allow them on your list?

Ffs op yabvu. Even after your update. How would your practice manage if there were two Male gps with similar names?

We had two Dr Williams' at our old surgery. Everyone managed just fine. We knew one quite well so we would refer to him as Dr first name Williams.

But in practise not everyone could say they had that. Another option was 'senior dr W'- referring to the senior partner dr rather than his age, esp given the other dr was elder in years.