Het Huisarts

At first I was sure there was no waiting room. (I was wrong. There was one.) The second thing that struck me was that they filled out the forms. The third thing I noticed was that there was only one form (and all I did was sign my name). What am I talking about? “Het Huisarts,” of course--the house doctor.

Sign on the waiting room door

I learned a while ago that the Dutch health care system is not like ours. (Is anybody’s like ours?) Here, everyone—and I mean everyone—must register with a “huisarts” (a general practitioner also known as a house doctor). Through the house doctor, and only through the house doctor, can referrals for specialized care be obtained (emergency care notwithstanding; even then, under critical circumstances, a house doctor would be assigned before emergency care would be administered—that reminds me of the joke about the cowboy on the runaway horse who screams “whoa, whoa, whoa” until he realizes that it won’t help. Then he yells, “Gittyup damn it! You will listen to me!”)

Why register at all; right? Wrong. Without registering there will be no referrals and certainly no prescriptions; quite literally, no care. I registered. Last week I asked Nurse Anita, the resident medical expert at ISA to recommend a house doctor. I learned that one must register with a house doctor in one’s postal zone. In my case, she recommended Dr. J. A. Boodt. With a classic Dutch accent, Nurse Anita informed me that Dr. Boodt is…uh…he is stern. He is not for children. He was a Marine; I think. You will like him. (I do wonder why she suspected that I would like him.)

Huisartspraktijk (General Practice)

Let me back up. I already told you that I had an understanding of the house doctor thing. I figured I was in no hurry because despite my inconsistent track record, I feel healthy. Wait, check that; I felt healthy—as in I felt healthy before I got to Holland. Before I started walking to and from work. Before I started carrying too much weight in a backpack. Before I started living in a cold, damp, overcast environment.

If you don’t recognize the medical condition called costochondritis, that's your good fortune, cuz that means you don’t have it. If you do know it, chances are you just said, “Oh crap” out loud. Yep. You know. I just wish that colorful expressions like “Oh crap” alleviated the symptoms—they don’t. Believe me, I know. They don’t.

A waiting room poster: What do you do when an emergency occurs in Amstelveen?

Defined as an inflammation of the cartilage that connects the ribs to the breastbone, costochondritis is often described as harmless chest pain. Harmless. Harmless huh? The guy who wrote that doesn’t have it. When active—as it has been 24/7 since last week—it can be mind numbing. The sharpness and seemingly random onset of severe pain in the ribcage has prompted far worse than “Oh crap!”

OK back to Heren Dokter. Today I registered—easy peasy—show up, sign my name, leave. I broke from standard protocol when I asked to see the doctor. “That is not possible; as I told you,” said the doctor’s assistant/receptionist. (Wait, she told me? When did she…nevermind.) I have been studying Dutch tendencies since I got here, so I said, “I understand. May I have the next available appointment?” No kidding, she looked in her appointment book (oh yeah, paper and pencil) and said, “You could come back at 2:20.” (It was 1:50. Like I said, no kidding.)

Among expatriates, Dutch house doctors have a reputation as being, let’s say, less than proactive. More than one colleague warned me that the standard response by a house doctor would be some version of “drink plenty of fluids and take three days off work.” Although that is probably sound advice, it would not serve me well, so I did the very thing I recommend to anyone dealing with Dutch people—be direct. I asked Heren Dokter for a prescription. He gave it to me.

Nurse Anita was right. I do like him.