Disclaimer: This post is not a personal attack against specific doctors, other than the ones mentioned, because I do realize there are many good ones. If you are, or are related to, a doctor I sincerely apologize for any misunderstandings and hurt feelings. My experience with a few doctors has made me generalize my feelings for all doctors. Logically this isn't very logical. But they still suck.

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I do not like doctors. They prick you with needles, stick giant Q-Tips down your throat to make you gag, they make you pee into tiny cups, they give you expensive prescriptions, their writing is not legible, and let's face it - once that incentive to get a lollypop after your visit is no longer available, what's the point?

All major diseases and emergencies aside, I refuse to see a doctor unless I am left with no other options. Sure you can yell at me when I'm sick (though yelling at a sick person isn't very nice) and run down the list of all the benefits of going to see one, but I would rather sit and pop Tylenol, if I even bother to take those (don't get me started on pill-poppers), and let the cough/cold/flu/tonsillitis run it's course naturally then disappear. Sure it may take longer, but I can tough it out, most of the time.

Take now, for example. I've had a sore throat since about Sunday. It's not the I-have-a-cold-and-cough type of sore throat, it's just painful. Eventually it occured to me that it's actually my tonsils and lymph nodes that are hurting. Suspecting that I have tonsillitis, off I went to WebMD to search for it on my own. I read up on it on my own and figured out what I have and how I'd go about treating it. All without having to see the doctor!

So maybe right about now people with shake their heads at my heedlessness with my own health and the lengths I'd go to to avoid a doctor. Shake your head all you want, but I've had such a barrage of bad experiences with doctors in my family that I've given up on my luck with them. Most of it is just doctors showing a major lack of interest in me or my case, or just making carless mistakes...

Just how many times can you suspect a person to have cancer before you just say yes or no?
And "mistakenly" cutting a major artery to put someone in a near death state? It's not right to put people through that...

The last time I went to the doctor (after much consistent persuasion by well-intentioned friends - thanks) I waited about 45 minutes, and when I eventually made it into the examination room, the doctor came in, didn't ask me my name or introduce himself; he checked me over about 3 minutes while asking a few questions (to which he didnt give any feedback to my answers), printed out a prescription, signed it, handed it to me, then walked out. I sat there wondering whether I should wait for him to come back or run after himself to find out what exactly I had. As I walked out I looked over the prescription I had in hand and was suprised to see that he had prescribed a strong antibiotic for something that wasn' all that severe. So I did what I thought I should do - I tore of the prescription outside the clinic and tossed it in the garbage on my way back to my car.

There'll come a time, not so far away, where the antibiotics we use now will be useless because of how often they are used and how resistant our bodies will become to them. The (evil!) pharmaceutical companies will then come out with stronger medications and will have to subject ourselved to that. Sound like a lot of nonsense? It's becoming more and more apparent - why else is tuberculosis, malaria and measles making a comeback?

I won't get into whether my experiences are part of the problems of the Canadian health system or maybe just that one doctor (I've had similar experiences with other doctors). I know I can't live by WebMD my whole life and will eventually have to see a doctor for something, but whenever possible I'll avoid that visit and reach for the over-the-counter stuff first.