Does your partner attend medical appointments with you?

[momtoboys]

I have a dear friend who attends all medical appointments with her, and visa versa. Neither of them is ill, this is for all appointments, follow-ups, annuals, a virus. They are in the exam room at all times. They also attend each others dental appointments and sit by the chair while the work is happening.

AIBU to think this is an unusual arrangement?

I think that what the OP has described is definitely a bit odd. DH and I certainly don't accompany each other to dental appointments or fairly routine appointments with our primary care physician. But as we age and have more medical issues, we do sometimes accompany each other for consultations with specialists. It's more a two heads are better than one type situation, especially because sometimes one of us will think of a question to ask that the other doesn't.

I went to a few of my husband’s when I thought he was minimising his mental health. It really helped and it also helped that I could see that the symptoms he’d been minimising to me were being taken really seriously by the GP and the GP encouraged me to accompany him.

Since my last reply to this thread things did change for us and I did begin going with DH to support him and learn things myself.

In late summer of 2025 DH was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. I went to all of those appointments as he did need support and I wouldn't have left him to go through it totally alone.

Unfortunately, it progressed very quickly and he is no longer with us. ☹️

It very much depends. I have epilepsy and my husband comes everywhere with me for safety reasons. Also, the epilepsy nurse likes to hear from someone who has witnessed my seizures as I can hardly describe them 🤷‍♀️

Yes.
My husband is the biggest advocate I can have. He is in the room for every single appointment with me, because it’s the only way I can get male doctors to listen to me!

My abusive ex used to beat me if he heard I’d been to the GP without him being there. He insisted. If I were a GP I’d assume that a certain number of the 50% of people bringing partners were being forced to do so - emotionally or physically.

This is an excellent point. In the US state where I live, physicians and other medical professionals are required to have domestic violence training periodically for licensure. Hopefully, GPs (or PCPs as we call then in the states (Primary Care Physician) can see some actions by patients and people accompanying them as potential red flags. I think a patient being accompanied by a partner all the time, especially for even relatively minor medical issues, is one of those red flags.