"The lady doctor"

[Taytocrisps]

I rang up during the week to make an appointment with my GP. It's a large GP practice, so there are four or five GPs. My preferred GP works part-time and never seems to be there when I ask for him. So I didn't ask for anyone in particular. The receptionist said, "You'll be seeing the lady doctor. Is that ok?". I was a bit taken aback so I just said, "Yeah, that's fine". Why did she ask if I was ok seeing the lady doctor? I'm sure she would never have said, "You'll be seeing the male doctor? Is that ok". And why refer to her as "the lady doctor". Why not just say, "You'll be seeing Dr. Kelly".

Obviously Dr. Kelly isn't her real name.

I've been asked if I'm comfortable seeing "the male doctor" when making a GP appointment. I think they just check most of the time in my experience 🤷

I presume she’s either checking with everyone about all drs, or checking when it’s not your usual dr.

If anything, it’s more common to request a female and so be asked if a man is ok. (If you’re a woman, I suppose!)

A lot of people do care about whether their doctor is male or female (many past posts on this forum where people say they wouldn't want to see a male doctor) so because of this I guess they always check these days.

I think it's good - you know what to expect. Some women prefer female GPs - I certainly do and always request one.

Yes, this.

I think people probably call up and ask for 'the lady doctor' so the receptionist has adopted that as a label.

Lots of people do care about the sex of their doctor so I don't see a problem with her flagging it.

She probably wouldn't say 'the male doctor' because there's probably more than one male doctor, but she may well have asked if you're ok seeing a male doctor (or might not have done if you'd already requested a male doctor).