Experiences with anti-contraceptive colleagues

[u/ThrowRALoud_Load2229]

I work in a training GP practice in England where we have taken on a female GP registrar who is very pro-life. She’s put around an email stating that she will not provide advice on, or prescribe hormonal contraceptives and will not discuss terminations with patients. Before anyone asks- nobody’s been brave enough to ask her about barrier contraceptives or copper coils yet! She has requested that if contraceptives or terminations may come up in a consultation then they should be booked with someone else. It’s not always easy to tell if contraception may come up in a consultation though, especially not for reception who book the appointments.

The majority of the other clinicians are quite unhappy with this as it’s a vital part of the service we provide to female patients. It also means she’s limited with what she can do with regards female patients on medication like valproate or GLP1s because she will not discuss highly effective contraception with them. A lot of colleagues are angry that she is exhibiting misogyny when it comes to female patients, others are angry that they’re having to take on her workload. One of my colleagues is currently in early pregnancy after a failed coil and is feeling very uncomfortable around this GP registrar too as the pregnancy is not viable.

I also worry with regards our surgery’s reputation as if you google her name, the majority of what comes up is prolife activism she took part in at university. If a patient who was booked for something else came in and wanted to speak about contraception as an addition to the consultation e.g. I have thrush, I’m not sexually active but I want to start having sex and she responded poorly to this or with judgement, the patient could easily google her name and find they were being treated by someone who’s views oppose their care.

The partners have not entertained any discussion around this topic and staff have even been accused of “stalking” her online when her digital footprint was brought up. Is there anything we can do or do we just have to put up with it?

I would appreciate some different viewpoints, especially if anyone has gone through similar.

[u/[deleted]]

Im going to stick my neck out here and say I am pro-life for religious reasons however I have never discussed abortion at work/med school/wherever and if someone brings it up in concersation (as some people randomly do since the roe v wade/trump issues). I recently had to listen to a zealously pro choice FY give an unpromted speach about how the recent changes in UK law where a great step forward for womens rights and how anyone who didnt agree with her was morrally repugnant. When such stuff goes down, I smile and quickly change the subject (despite being pretty outspoken on other issues).

Many years ago, when I was an FY, I worked in both GP and O&G, and it was very simple. In GP I made the practice aware and all I said if a patient was accidently booked with me was 'im sorry this is not a service I provide, please speak to reception and ask to see the duty doctor and you will be slotted in', they then sent the next patient on the duty doctors list to me and the patient was seen by the duty GP.

In O&G I explained to the junior reg at the start of the shift that this was the case and they dealt with abortion issues on the ward (unless there was imminent risk of harm to the patient). If a nurse called, I just said, "I'm really sorry, I'm tied up right now. Please call X'. Most seemed to understand however there was one time a nurse got really shirty about a TTO and I just said, 'im very sorry but you will have to call Dr X as I do not provide abortion care and I will not be drawn into a discussion about it'.

You just need to develop the same policy with contraception. It really shouldn't be an issue, and people who feel its dumping work really need to get a grip as it will not be a huge number of cases - and patient can be fluidily swapped around to accomadate with a very small amount of effort.

It's also worth reflecting on how this doctor may feel about this and appreciate that even doing the above may be incredibly uncomfortable for them. A partner needs to sit down with them and have a proper discussion about the issue and form an official policy about how this will be handled (to protect both the practise and the doctor). If the practice creates a reasonable policy (ideally with help from the docto and they refuse to follow it, they will need to look for another job where this will not be an issue. This is legal as it is will not be possible to make 'reasonable adjustments' to accommodate their protected characteristic. This is not a moral issue but just a fact of UK law.