I prefer Female doctors. My experience has been the female doctors will actually listen more and involved me in the course of treatment that I will have to follow. However, not all female doctors are the same just as all male doctors are not the same. There are female doctors I have seen (once) who can be just as condescending and arrogant as any male doctor. Female doctors can also be just as incompetent as their male counterparts. I experienced a case of incompetence just this week.
I had been experiencing lower abdominal pain that radiates toward my right testicle for about 2 weeks. The pain was not too bad and like clockwork it
came on at about -6 PM almost everyday. With a long Thanksgiving weekend approaching I though it best to have it checked out before doctors offices
closed for the long weekend. Since the pain only came on after 5 PM my choices were the emergency room or an Urgent Care facility. I chose the latter.
My wife drove me to the Urgent Care place down the road. She insisted on coming with me because she thought I might say I went but not really go. There were no patients in the waiting area when I sat down to fill out the paperwork. When I was done the receptionist came around to the patient door and told me to come on back. My wife followed. The receptionist is seemed was also the nurse. She took my vitals and said the doctor will be in shortly. About 2 minutes later a young lady in a lab coat came in. She asked me "what brings you in? I told her about my lower abdominal pain that radiates down toward my right testicle. She asked a few questions then told me to hop up on the table. I was completely clothed at this point. She listened to my lungs, and heart then had me lay back flat on my back. She pressed on my abdomen asking does this hurt. Then she helped me to a sitting position. She said that she thinks I need to have some tests; CT scan, MRI, etc. I cut her off at that point and told her that 2 years ago I had this same thing and was diagnosed with Epididymitis. She said "well lets have a look. Take down your pants and underwear". My wife said "should I leave the room?" I quickly shot back with "no, if you leave the the nurse will have to come in". (an opportunity to slam the use of a chaperone taken). So I dropped my pants and shorts and faced the doctor and my wife. The doctor did the turn your head and cough routine for hernia check. Why, I don't know. Then she felt around on my testicles. The odd thing about this condition is that when the pain is at it's worst, my right testicle actually raises up higher that the left one. When the doctor got to feeling my right testicle i kind of jerked due to it being tender. The doctor said I could pull my pants up. She proclaimed I did in fact have Epididymitis (just like I had to tell her), and she wrote me the prescription for the antibiotics that I wanted in the first place.
After we left and were on the drive home, I made the comment to my wife that I had to give the doctor the diagnosis. My wife said "she wasn't a doctor, she was a Physician's Assistant (PA), didn't you see her name and PAC on her lab coat?"