A Doctor's Visit

When I first arrived in Paris earlier this year, I lived for several months on a tourist visa. I got sick occasionally. I ate something bad or got the flu, but a day of bed rest and plenty of liquids always did the trick. Nothing was ever serious enough to merit a hospital visit--perhaps my parents' greatest fear: uninsured son, deathly ill, abroad.

From what I've heard, France isn't the worst place in the world to be a sick tourist. In fact, they say it's a pretty good place to be sick in general. The service is generally quite good, and the government pays the vast majority of costs (something like 3/4). In total, France pays less per person than the US (which blows all other countries out of the water despite not having universal coverage), but they still spend more than other European countries. I remember German students' reactions to the system when we were all exchange students together. There was no cost to use the student clinic and prices at the pharmacy were two, three, four times cheaper than in Germany. On the other hand, the French health system, like the American health system, costs more and more each year with no end in sight.

Last week I wasn't sick, but I decided to visit a doctor anyway. It had been almost a year since I had been to the doctor, and I'm required by the state health insurance system to establish a relationship with a "primary health care provider", as we Americans so eloquently put it.

The first step to finding a doctor, believe it or not, is to visit a pharmacy. More so than in the U.S., French pharmacies serve as a first stop for health issues. For minor issues, pharmacies will diagnose and prescribe medicines. If they aren't sure or can't handle the problem, they'll send you to the doctor. I asked for a list of local doctors and got the pharmacist's recommendation. The next day I called to make an appointment. The doctor I chose had an opening a few days later at an early enough hour for me to still to make it to work. So I took it.

The office was in a building like all other Parisian buildings, with a gigantic door and a digicode on the side. However, there was also a button to beep the doctor's office. Being the intelligent Parisian resident that I am, I pressed the correct button and the door soon popped unlock. I made my way up the dark, winding staircase (once again, typically Parisian) until the second floor and then opened the door.

It wasn't at all what I was expecting.

Somehow, in my head, I had transplanted this idea of an American waiting room into a Parisian building. I imagined a brightly colored room with chairs and a coffee table full of magazines I would never read and the TV blaring a program I normally would never watch even if I watched TV to begin with. Behind the counter (because there would be a counter), I would find a disaffected receptionist with dozens of forms for me to fill out, already nicely placed on a clipboard with a pen. But everything would be slightly smaller, because rent in Paris is not cheap.

Nope. None of it. Except the chairs.

It was quite eerie. To the left was a medium-sized room with chairs lining the walls, every last one of them empty. To the right were two doors, both closed. Nothing else. Not a human in sight. No magazines and no clipboards.

I walked up to the doors and read the name, looked down at my appointment information and back at the door. Yep. Correct name. The waiting room in my mind found a new location, just on the other side of the door. Perhaps the chairs were just excess capacity in case of patient overflow. I reached for the door handle. No. Better to knock, just in case.

Good thing I knocked. A man cracked open the door and poked his head out. "Oui?" I could see another man inside, the funny doctor's bed, the table. It was the doctor's office.

I explained that I had an appointment. He pointed back across the hall at the empty, large, dreary waiting room.

Ah! No receptionist. No TV. No coffee table. No magazines. I guess that's one way to keep costs down.

Once I was finally inside, the doctor and I discussed my health history, the French system, and the one form that I had to fill out. Yes, just one form.

For my medical history, he wrote out a notecard with my name at the top and then the date and a line of comments below, before filing it away.

Several times while we were talking, the phone rang. I asked if it was always that busy. He replied that it was unusually and frustratingly busy. Once or twice someone buzzed from downstairs and so he had to push a button to let them in.

Despite the sparse furnishings and low-budget setup, I noticed that the doctor was outfit with a nice desktop and flat top screen. Even though he preferred to write down the details of his patients' visits on a note card, he felt comfortable using some sort of medical reference online. I suppose it's nice to have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips to help you diagnose and prescribe, but it also makes me wonder about a doctor's basic level of knowledge.

Before I left, I had to pay him 23 euros. That's the actual cost of the appointment; he takes the cash himself. Once I get all my paperwork done, I will get a pretty decent refund from my 'mutuelle', the add-on health insurance I get from work.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I have excellent blood pressure.