Stop right there! Before we go any further…

GPs baffle me.  Not the terminology they use – I’ve got some books and I know how to Google – but rather the awesome  capacity they have for condescention, superiority and supercilliousness.

I’ve lived with medical students and it was little short of terrifying that these idiots would, in the space of a few very short years, find themselves making life or death judgements regarding a small child or somebody’s helplessly infirm granny.  To a man they were beer-soaked buffoons incapable of operating anything more complex than their belt buckles, in whose blunderingly incapable hands you would no more place your health than you would trust it to a poorly-trained cocker-spaniel wearing oven gloves.

But regardless of this youthful ineptitude, by the time you encounter those crashing incompetents in their own little surgery rooms, they have not only passed some exams and (probably) killed a few folk in Accident and Emergency, but have also morphed into the most patronisingly condescending know-it-alls and developed egos bigger than Staffordshire Hospital’s mortality rate.  During the same period, it transpires their poor opinion of the general public has merely shifted from ‘bloody people coming between me and the student bar’ to ‘bloody people coming between me and the wine bar’.

We do have one deceptively genial little GP in our local practice but his superiority complex is merely disguised behind a jaunty bow tie and some David Dickinson half moons, to lull you into thinking he’s a jovial eccentric, not a spite-ridden megalomaniac with a chip on his shoulder about not being a surgeon who couldn’t care less if you lived or died as long as the prescription he writes for you gets him a good lunch from the drugs rep.  My friend calls him Doctor Loop-de-loop.  And, delightfully, Dr Loop-de-loop has been the gentleman most interested in my contraceptive needs.  Oh joy.

On my first check-up after having my second child, Dr Loop-de-loop drew me into an uncharactaristically (for me) emotional conversation about how I was coping with two kids and even managed to make me cry a little (not exactly an arduous task when confronted with any mother to a newborn).  Having established my fragile state, lack of libido and tendency towards depression, he then prescribed a contraceptive pill different to my old one.  Suspicious as ever of drugs rep influence on the change, I asked whether there were any side effects.

“Nothing out of the ordinary”, was the helpful reply.

A few hours later I had read so many horror stories in so many forums from women bemoaning the effects of this pill on (a) their mental states and (b) their libidos that I deduced it to be an unwise choice for me.  I ignored the prescription and Husband No.1 and I  continued to get off at Haymarket*.

At my next visit to Doctor Loop-de-loop, on an unrelated matter, the subject of contraception reared its ugly head again.  His Groundhog-day obliviousness to previous appointments means he often begins conversations that have been held before and rarely consults patient notes, or else he’d see that I’d spurned his prescription and was still in danger of expanding the gene pool through irresponsible copulation.  So, not checking the notes or remembering about his prescription, he asked afresh what form of contraception I was using.

“Er…condoms”, I lied, hoping to end the discussion.

“Well, there’s a word for people who use condoms you know”, says he.

“Er…parents?”, I guessed.

“Parents!”, he answered delightedly, ignoring my anticipation of his punchline, “Would your husband like a vasectomy?”

I doubt it, thought I, wondering if he’d meant that to sound like an offer.  But before I could form a suitable answer, Doctor Loop-de-loop launched into what I can only describe as the most jaw-dropping discussion I’ve ever had with a member of the medical profession.  And I’ve broken bones in Italy.

“Well, just a word of warning if he does”, he began, ready to earn his nickname.  “If he does, make sure you tell no-one in your family.  NO-ONE, I say!”

I found myself unenthusiastic about where this conversation might be heading; I only came in with an ear infection!  But I couldn’t help myself.  During his pregnant (excuse the pun) pause, my eyebrow raised involuntarily and I let out an inquiring, if slightly strangled, ‘hmm?’  Shit.

“Yes.  Keep his vasectomy between yourselves.  You’re a young, attractive lady.  I’m sure you still have a social life.”

Er…no.

“So, just imagine the scene; you go out one night, perhaps you have a little too much to drink and you meet a flattering young chap and, well, one thing leads to another and you find yourself in the family way.”

Sorry?

“So you and your husband talk this through, decide to raise the child as your own – an admirable decision but there, you see!”

There?  What do I see?!  What’s happening?!

“Your whole family know the child isn’t your husband’s!”  This last sentence was uttered with some triumph.

What?!!

“So if he does have a vasectomy, keep it to yourselves.  That’s my advice.”

“Right. Hang on”, say I, “I stepped in here with a sore ear and in the space of ten minutes you’ve given my husband the snip, got me pissed in the local whereupon I’ve picked up some random bloke, shagged him, got myself up the duff, agreed with my hapless and seedless husband to keep the child and raise it as our own, whereupon the entire family shun us because they know it’s a bastard.  And all because of that Vasectomy Party we just had to throw.  Well, I don’t think that’s on, Doctor Loop-de-loop, in fact, I’m quite sure  this kind of advice is rather frowned upon by the BMA.”

Of course, what I actually said was, “Um…well, I thought perhaps…the coil…?”

And so I left, with a pamphlet, and a niggling sense of undeserved shame.

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*For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase; ‘Getting off at Haymarket’ is a euphemism for the withdrawal method of contraception, Haymarket being the penultimate station for many trains into Edinburgh which then terminate at Waverley.