having a doctor of the same or opposite gender?

i have an irrational fear of doctors of all genders

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Wednesday, 28 October 2020

^^^^this

(Once I ended up having to wear a monitor for 24 hours because my blood pressure was so high while I was in the clinic. According to the monitor data, my blood pressure was completely normal, and the doctor told me "it was White Lab Coat Syndrome" which is apparently a thing?)

yeah my experience is the same as Tom D's - you make an appointment, you turn up and it's a roulette of which GP you get. When I had my severe depression episode a few years back I saw four different doctors in the space of six weeks at my surgery, which was interesting - two were happy to sign me off for a week quickly, one was ready to sign me off for a month and set up medication and therapy, and one was dismissive and told me to basically get ove myself. You can guess which one of the four was the old white man.

I've had several female doctors, and I've been to one of them w/ a dick problem. Didn't think twice about it, or about preferring a male doc. I personally don't think gender is what I'm responsive to when visiting a doctor; much more important is if I feel comfortable around the person and think them professional.

While I agree everyone should be able to choose a doctor, esp for 'intimate' or sensitive issues like the above, I am at the same time kind of amazed why this would be a reason to switch to a same-gendered doctor. Or that this is a thing for so many people.

What about therapists? I have had women therapists and they’ve never been as effective for me, through no fault of theirs. As a man, I find it harder to be candid with women. Subconsciously, I seem to want every woman to think I’m perfectly competent and have everything under control.

I'm the opposite, I find it harder to be candid with men, basically because I don't trust men.

I'm a dude with a female GP. At first I was a little timid about it but now I prefer it this way. I have had male doctors try to bond with me over MAN stuff and it weirds me out. There's a strange dance that men often do with each other, especially if there is a power dynamic (doctor=authority). There is none of that with the female GPs I have had.

My current GP is male but the reason I’m with him is that he had an open appointment on the first day I needed a doctor in Australia. I’ve kept on seeing him because he appears to be really good at either remembering who I am or, more likely, both writes good notes and reads them before I come in the room; he gives the impression he know who I am, which has definitely not been the case with other physicians. I haven’t been to him with dick issues though, but I would if I did.

Whenever I’ve been to the STD clinic to get tested, the nurse practitioner administering the swab of the urethra has been female.

As the role of the "Doctor" has changed, from being an expert or a scientist who delivers Treatments, to being a Primary Care Provider, who... provides Care, it's really interesting how the perception of the competence of female doctors has changed.

"It is Women who are the gender who provide care" is one of the central tenets of the Gender Binary - and it's interesting to see how cis male doctors who are now charged with providing *care*, either don't bother and are now seen as bad doctors compared to female counterparts - or their attempts at "care" are totally cack-handed and come across like 'weird man-bonding stuff' or being totally patronising and scattering sexism in their ungainly attempts at "care".

WRT therapists, I've experienced so many *bad* ones of various genders that it's hard to spot a pattern. The two I had the most success with were both women.

But another experience with a male care-giver - about 15 years ago, in a very bad suicidal depression, I went to the doctor to seek antidepressants, even though I'd never had much luck with them before. I was given a prescription, but because I was so suicidal, one of the nurses made a weekly appointment for me to come back for a "medication check-in" (basically to check that I hadn't offed myself) - and that was the *only* time in my life, where antidepressants actually seemed to work, and my mood lifted and my depression improved. The nurse - who was a man, but a very gentle, gay, sensitive, Welsh man with a lovely, melifluous caring voice - he just had this absolutely lovely way with people, I can only really describe it, that his gaze was like a laser beam of care and attention, and when he was talking to you, you felt like, to him, you were the only person who mattered in the entire world? I used to walk out of those check-ins feeling like a million bucks and ready to face life again.

He left the practice after a number of months, and the miraculous antidepressants stopped working within a matter of weeks.

I'm guessing the "medication check-ins" with the caring nurse helped lift your mood more than the pills did, which is why they became ineffective after he left the practice - classic placebo effect. My own experience with antidepressants is that they had no noticeable effect whatsoever, except some of them making me a bit nauseous.

I went off wellbutrin and alcohol recently. Feel great, a little anxious but more alert.

I'm the opposite, I find it harder to be candid with men, basically because I don't trust men.

― Young Boys of Bernie (Tom D.), Wednesday, October 28, 2020 5:42 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

same

i have never cared one way or the other about the gender of my doctor/therapist/teacher/personal trainer/tour guide/waiter/etc

I had the doctors appointment and the male doctor was professional, helpful, and non-broey.

He did have an "alt-right haircut" though, so I can't tell if he's into Interpol or Richard Spencer.

did you ask him about carlos d interpol herpes during your appointment