If You’re Gonna Waste My Time, At Least Tell Me Why

For several years after college, I didn’t have a primary care physician. I was working, and I had insurance, but finding a doctor was a big hassle I didn’t feel like dealing with.

This all came to a head in 2009 when I was about to get married. My husband-to-be and I had not been sexually active, and I wasn’t on birth control. I needed birth control. I called the local “find a doctor” line, and they assigned me to a doctor. (She became the primary care physician for both of us until her retirement. This story isn’t about her; she’s wonderful.) But the soonest I could make an appointment was literally during our wedding.

So, I went to the local walk-in clinic. I was in good health and younger than thirty, and all I needed was a prescription for hormonal birth control.

I was upfront about what I was looking for. The doctor who saw me grilled me about my sexual history. (Virtually none.) He grilled me about my relationship with my fiancé. How long, was there any abuse, etc. (No. My husband of now fourteen years is the sweetest man.)

He insisted I take a pregnancy test, despite the fact that I told him I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.

And then, after this very embarrassing, intrusive visit… he told me he couldn’t prescribe me birth control. Why? No reason was given. He knew the whole reason for the visit was to get birth control, and rather than just say up front that he thought birth control was for, I don’t know, women with loose morals or something, he put me through an hour of irrelevant questioning just to tell me no.

And then he charged me for the visit.

(Happy ending, other than the misery of the visit: I found a family planning clinic that got me in within a couple of days, and they did want to do a pap smear since I’d never done one, but they didn’t ask me any extraneous questions or demand I pee in a cup when I told them I couldn’t be pregnant, and I got my birth control in time for it to be working before the wedding.)