What is a women’s health GP and why?

When I went through medical school, I thought I would end up as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. I love women’s health and talking to women so it seemed the logical specialty. After completing my compulsory hospital training, I took up a job at a big women’s hospital in Melbourne for a year and discovered that this was not going to be my specialty. The main reason was that obstetricians don’t get to sleep like normal people and I knew that I don’t function well without a full night’s rest (it sets off migraines which is a whole other story).

So I went about doing general practice training as I knew they got to do a lot of women’s health and that in modern day Melbourne, GPs don’t usually get woken up in the night to work. I also love talking to people about their lives and helping them so it really ticked a lot of boxes.

I may have been a GP but I gravitated towards women’s health jobs - first at a Family Planning Clinic, then at a perinatal focused general practice and then at a big women’s health clinic with a menopause focus.

What I noticed was that women were willing to travel to a dedicated women’s clinic to see someone who they trusted and who took the time to listen to them. Women told me they weren’t interested in seeing a doctor that rushed them through a consultation and hadn’t really understood all their concerns. They wanted someone to go through all their options in a holistic way and not just to recommend a medication.

I also learned that women’s health issues and mental health issues are all closely linked and it is very hard to offer a separate service for these 2 aspects of health. I knew that I couldn’t offer a quick 10 or 15 minute appointment and provide women with the service they wanted.

And this is why I have created my own dedicated women’s clinic offering accessible services to women for their ‘women’s health’ and psychological issues. I have combined my years of experience working in specialised women’s services and extra study into one offering. I can now focus on continuing extra education solely on women’s and mental health so that I am really up to date with the latest research in this area.

I work within a general practice with other amazing female GPs who can look after the health issues that are beyond the scope of a women’s clinic. If a woman sees me for a women’s health issue and I identify a medical issue that needs the expertise of a general practitioner, I can refer back to my colleagues and we can collaborate under one roof to provide the woman with the best care. Examples of this may be a skin lesion that needs removal or the management of complex medical conditions such as diabetes. I can also refer straight on to a specialist if I think this is appropriate.

I find this model really satisfying and I hope that I can continue to help women in this way for many years to come.