uncommon to request to see a female consultant?

[lynn1]

At UCH for a consultant appt the other day (17 wks) and requested a female consultant. I was told previous week that this was no issue, just to make the request when I arrived to check in. So I did, and the woman at the registry acted as if they'd never gotten that request in the history of the hospital. She said none were there and it was going to be "a bit of a problem." Then just looked at me as if she expected me to change my mind.
I completely wasted a trip there due to being told there would be a female consultant and there wasn't.
Anyone ever made this request or am I totally out of the ordinary?

I agree that the receptionist was probably being a twat.

It's just the NHS way. If you ask for anything extra, or what they view as 'special treatment', it seems to annoy the staff intensely. When I first saw my local midwife at 8 weeks, I asked her to hold off on doing the booking appt etc until my 12 week scan as my last pregnancy was a MMC at 11 +5 so I spent 2 hours at a booking appointment at 10 weeks creating a file and note etc for nothing, which was quite upsetting when I found out I'd lost the pregnancy. This time, I asked her if she could just do the booking appointment and 12 week scan together to save me the stress. She said that wouldn't be a problem. When I turned up for my 12 week scan, however, it was a different story and the staff were all quite stressed out about the fact that I would need more time to do the booking appt in addition to the scan. This was despite them having been giving plenty of advance notice on this and me having a pretty good reason not to have done things the 'normal' way. They made me feel like I was making an imposition on them and taking up valuable time.

So as I said, it's the NHS way. They just don't like people asking for what they see as special treatment. If I were you in London and could afford it, I would go private but there are no private maternity facilities where I am in Scotland.

It is wise to choose a female consultant. As an academic aware of the issues surrounding medical misconduct, I would say that your case is not at all unseal.
You must be assertive. It is very common for medical staff to attempt to deny your requests for their own convenience. This is your service and they are getting paid for it ? you will not put anyone out by demanding what you need.

TheReal, why are you bumping a bunch of old threads in order to extol the virtues of female medical staff? It's very odd.