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?

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.

No but other posters, one's not shouting you're a bully, suggested it, so presumably the OP acted

And she wanted to stop her changing her name in this specific professional context for valid business reasons. Not just because she felt like it, or because she could.

Sorry but YABU. The reception team who deal with all your appointments will be able to see clearly which GP they are registered with when booking as they'll have the patient records in front of them.
I speak from experience. My SiL and I both work in the same field she took my DB's name and we have the same first name.

There is the danger however in becoming Old Dr T and New Dr T. But that could just as easily happen having only the same first names.

the OP is totally defensive, Its my name and its my patients and shes not getting them, is how it comes across and perhaps why people feel Dr Lucy needs a little defense

I agree that you can't establish that she's a bully from a few posts, but I disagree with "Zero evidence of any bullying behaviour or attitudes, any previous disagreements or indeed anything other that co-operative harmony." For a start, when the OP said the following that hardly speaks of co-operative harmony:

I have been at the practice 20 years longer than her - I will be senior partner from next year after the only GP who has been here longer than me retires.

If I tell her she can't, then she can't.

As the OP has been a practicing GP for 20 years she probably has a better idea of how it would affect the practice and its operations (esp re the demographics of their patients) than a bunch of people whose only experience is as a patient who once had to explain they wanted the Dr Smeggins with a bob not the one with a perm.

That was @WindDoesNotBreakTheBendyTree

So the problem got resolved. I just hope for your sake Dr OP it was resolved entirely to everyone’s satisfaction. For some reason I am left with an uneasy feeling about the manner in which it was resolved. An unease which began with you sharing the view ‘if I tell her she can’t she can’t’ being senior partner might mean you have first call on holidays and such but does not carry any rights or authority not covered by your practice agreement. Remember, come retirement you may require the unanimous agreement of your juniors to reduce your hours or change your duties. If you are not nice to folks on the way up .........

My GP practice is great but I just see whatever doctor is available at the time. They look at the older notes, or I fill them in. Even with a named doctor I would expect him or her to have too many patients to remember my history without looking it up. I don’t even remember their names to be honest.

I guess ig’s Different if you are under ten care of your GP for a chronic condition or something, but what percentage of patients would that be overall I wonder?

Notwithstanding the above, I still think that it was daft of the younger colleague to want to change her name professionally, in these specific unusual circumstances.

Why do people think elderly people in particular will be confused? People of my grandparents generation were called one of about a dozen first names, and mobility was much less so loads of people had the same surname in small locales. My granny had 13 other Marys in her primary school class, eight of them with the same surname. Older people are well used to dealing with people with the same name, far more than younger generations .

I also find it astonishing that most people think the bride-to-be hasn't considered this issue herself and only needs it brought to her attention, to be shown the light.

Massive pita for the receptionists too.

Wonder if she agreed due to feeling pressured? I’m assuming you did it in front of everyone in the meeting for that effect, rather than a quiet word?

^^ This is exactly how she has come across.

That sounds like a good result OP. I am a bit surprised at the responses the OP has had. Having two doctors with almost identical names would irritate me quite a lot and I am neither elderly nor vulnerable.

At my last workplace, there was another woman with the same first name and a surname that rhymed with mine. It meant that the senior people kept coming up to me to talk about work she had done (and vice versa) and then getting irritated when I / she didn't know what they were talking about. It makes sense to avoid confusion for patients.

I also think that raising it in the meeting was probably the correct thing to do. If the OP had had a "little chat" with the junior colleague, she would then be vulnerable to being told that she'd manipulated her.

This has to be made up. No real doctor would go on mumsnet and make themselves sound so arrogant and display such a lack of respect for their colleagues or the public, “none of you know how general practice works” indeed.

It’s an interesting dilemma with potentially genuine safety concerns but I find it impossible to believe an experienced GP would ask the Internet about this instead of discussing it with colleagues.

So you be Dr Lucy senior and she can be dr Lucy junior? Sorted.

I'm with Doccc. The story is believable, but the way it has been presented on here from a 'first time poster' sounds a bit phoney.

You are a gp and are asking this question???

CruCru - I think you are a bit surprised because you haven't paid attention to what posters are questioning. You may well be right that the best outcome is having different names to avoid patient confusion, and many have agreed with that. But that's not what more recent posts have been taking issue with.

What posters are less happy about is the apparent high-handed way the OP has gone about it - no quiet discussion with just the other doctor, but raising it in front of all management so that (I'm guessing) it was hard for the more junior doctor to disagree. And the OP's own words: If I tell her she can't, then she can't.

If the new doctor was joining the partnership then they often have a clause where they are basically on probation for a bit and either side can pull out within first few months or year, without even citing a reason.

I think that's probably why op said it she said she couldn't then she couldn't.

Rest of brusqueness I read as her being a busy gp not having time to write too much.

Glad you got it sorted op

Are we all going to Stand Down now and stop throwing personal attacks around?

It seems everyone is jumping down the OPs throat calling her nasty names, like a bully with zero evidence.

Some apologies are due I think, if you think you’re hard enough... and especially from the poster who thinks healthcare providers don’t work together as a team: that nurses are just there like brainless morons to do the heavy lifting and scrubbing. Just wow.

I’ll leave you to it.

Peace and, what was it? oh yes, ‘the redemptive power of love’ y’all.

someones even put as a taxpayer

So the other partners have made a decision that they cannot legally enforce.

It would be interesting to know how the junior partner actually felt about this and not how the OP says she feels.

Both doctors are female and have the same first names, and surnames which are pronounced, if not spelt, the same. That is completely different from a married couple or a family of doctors in the same practice, particularly as the soon-to-be-wed one is already known to patients in the practice by her maiden name, so in the circumstances, it is illogical for her to want to change it, thereby causing unnecessary confusion all round. If I were her, I wouldn't even want to change my name in those circumstances.

I honestly just don't get why people are so passionate about the junior colleague's right to change her "professional name" on marriage. Or tbh why should would want to, at all, and especially when its obviously going to be a monumental pain in the arse for everyone involved. .