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?

"Is it the older doctor or the younger one?"
"The one with red hair or the one with blonde?"
"The larger dr or the petite one?"

Change your own name OP.

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

You do know she can don't you? You sound like a control freak FFS. Personally I'd tell you to stick your job if you ever tried to dictate to me like this, GP or not. You're a GP, that's all, and have no right to dictate to anyone.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to discuss with her the problems it is likely to cause, I am a GP partner and some patients still mix me up with a colleague despite there being little similarity in our names, we’re both female and that seems to be enough for confuse them!
I’m surprised your collegue wants to change her name given the confusion it would cause and I can see why you’re irritated.
However it would be very unreasonable for you to take the attitude ‘I’ve been here for 20 years and you have to do as I say!’. I am lucky to be in a partnership where we all consider each other equal and wouldn’t want to be in one where that was the attitude!

If not, can she hypen her surname at work with her maiden name so patients call still refer to her as Dr X, and she still has her new surname included officially

Does it matter? as long as they get seen by a Dr.

Since you seem 100% certain you’re not being unreasonable I will don’t understand what the point of the question is

Totally agree with this.

Change your own name OP

Not really a solution. I've had many of my patients for over 20 years, and many of my elderly/non-native English patients will not remember and will end up going to see the new Dr Lucy Townshend instead.

I think there were a couple of politicians with this problem once, but I can understand why you wouldn't wasn't to be known as Dr Lucy Townsend the Elder.

If she really wants to change her name then an alternative might be for you both to use middle names.

I'd put it to her and ask what she thinks the best way forward is. The non-negotiable bit is that it will cause confusion (she might argue it will be fine) but the solution should be up for discussion. She might suggest keeping maiden name herself when she realises Or for example be happy to be known as "Dr Lucy". It might be worth pointing out merits of keeping maiden name professionally.

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

Wow. Maybe she needs to think about going to work somewhere where the soon to be 'queen' of the GP surgery isn't such a complete cow.

If she wants to change her name personally and professionally, then that's her decision. It has nothing to do with you and there's nothing you can legally do about it so you may as well just get used to it now.

The arsey one or the nice one?

Yanbu. Can you imagine the chaos for the receptionists.

Look, you're not wrong that it'll cause confusion and needs sorting but your tone is very dictatorial and you'll solve it more easily and with less angst by just talking about it with her.

Our school had 2xteachers called Sarah Smith... so one became Ms. Sarah instead. I think I would propose something like that to colleague.

Even after twenty years you can change your name to Winnie The Pooh if you wanted. At my old surgery there were two Dr Johnstone so one was called Dr Debbie, and she's known everywhere as Dr Debbie, but to be perfectly honest, if someone needs to see a GP, I'm pretty sure they won't give two shites what the name is.

Your concerns are not unreasonable, but the way you are posting about the issue on here suggests you may be prone to going about it in an imperious and, dare I say it, arrogant way which may well get her back up, as it is a number of people's on here.

ICouldBeSomebodyYouKnow has the right approach. (And her username should give you pause. Your dilemma is quite identifying, even presuming you haven't used the correct surnames).

Your management skills as a senior partner leave a lot to be desired if you plan on speaking to her like that.

You are correct this is going to be a bit of a pain. But I think you either need to take a more collaborative approach to finding a solution or get some decent employment law advice

YABU and a dick to tell her what she can and can’t do with her own name

YANBU to discuss it with her (not dictate to her!) and see what solution can be found. As PP said, the receptionist can surely ask based on appearance, who they saw last time, the nice one or the nasty one etc

You are grown women. I am sure you’re going to be able to work it out 🙄🙄

Why would those elderly patients go to the wrong dr? Surely this is a matter of training the reception staff?!

The arsey one or the nice one?

Honestly OP your attitude is horrific, I do hope it's just an issue caused by the loss of tone over text and you aren't this abrasive irl. I feel a bit sorry for your colleagues right now! You'd be unreasonable to tell her she isn't to use her married name, but you could explain why it probably wouldn't work overly well and offer some alternative suggestions, there's a couple earlier in the thread which made sense. Good luck with it, I think you'll need to word it all carefully if you want to avoid potential awkwardness!

I think the points about confusion over patient correspondence and results etc would be the most persuasive ones for me, especially as there could be risks around delays in acting on results, confidentiality issues and so on. The confusion over identity would probably be resolved more easily with the Dr Lucy etc solutions but I think the other issues are real practical problems that require a sensible solution. I don't think it is unreasonable to raise this with her, but you need to do it sooner rather than later before she starts changing things like her GMC registration etc. If you approach this is as a patient safety issue, I think it could be sensitively handled and lead to the outcome you want.

You shouldn't have asked MN OP!
I can't believe anyone would actually want to change their name to the exact same name as their senior colleague. In a field where it is usual practice to not change to your new married name anyway.

I tell her she really should not do that it would be a disaster for admin and for patients.

PP Have you ever been an admin- receptionist in a busy environment? Why should they keep repeating "was that the blonde or middle name so-and-so dr" for every call how impossible that would make your job!