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Finding a gynecologist (from the perspective of a social media professional)


As I just started writing about my pregnancy, I have to flashback a little bit to tell you what happened in my first trimester.

This time, I will tell you about finding the right doctor, or what we normally call a gynecologist. When I lived in Europe,  I heard you don’t need a gynecologist in the first place. You’d need a midwife. And how to find a good midwife? Basically your GP will refer you to someone or give you a list of midwives; or sometime you can go to a website, type your postcode and find a midwife near you (along with reviews from people). So no biggie. I hardly heard any complaints about midwives in the Netherlands.

In Indonesia, it is totally different. Normally people would go to a gynecologist that is referred to them by relatives, friends or families. If you are lucky that your mom’s gynecologist is still around, you’d probably go to that one. Or you'd go to the one that all people would recommend. Sometimes, people would do anything just to get treated by a famous gynecologist, just because of the reputation. They would queue  for hours, wait for days, just to get enlisted in this particular gynecologist.

My search for a gynecologist was slightly different. In the past, I had a gynecologist, who treated my cyst. He is one of those doctors, who are very famous and the queue would last hours. Sometime I had to wait till midnight to be treated. So, I was looking for a plan B.

My plan B is to ask Mr. Google to show me gynecologists in the area of Surabaya, preferably near my house, who are good, recommended by people, and have good reputation both online and offline. It wasn't that hard to finally find one gynecologist, who stood out in the online realm. His name is Dr. Didi Dewanto.

I went to see him. I just knew it was the right doctor for me. And I decided that he’d be my gynecologist.
People found my decision, especially the way I came to my decision, very peculiar. Dr. Didi is not really famous in Surabaya. From all the people I spoke with and mentioned the name of my gynecologist, only one or two people knew or heard of him. When I told them how I came to choose this gynecologist, they were perplexed on why I trusted Mr. Google to make a decision.

So, here are some points that were part of my (and my husband’s) consideration:
  1. During my search on Google, his name came up in different new-mom/pregnancy/female forum. Some people said he was nice and patient. Other said that he was just the right gynecologist after they visited a few others. Another said he was very nice to talk to.
  2. There were two or three blog posts about him. Thus not only people would talk about him in different forum, but some really made an effort to write about him. I am a social media professional. This fact is really important. It means that customers are really happy and satisfied about the brand that they are willing to pass on words of mouth.
  3. One of the things people said about him is that you don’t need to queue for hours to be treated by him. Bingo! This is what I need. Also, his location is close to my house.
  4.  After I met him, he is what people say he is. All of the description and review about him that I found on Google really were true.
  5. He is very tech-savvy and very relaxed. These 2 traits are important! He is a tech-savvy with a Blackberry Messenger. Thus, if you have a strange stomachache, or you are not sure whether you can or cannot eat certain food, or if you found a slight of blood in your panty; he is just a BBM away. He is also very relaxed. He does not tell you what you cannot eat or do. Basically, I haven’t been a different person ever since I found out I was pregnant. I still exercise, I still eat anything (although for sure I said goodbye to alcoholic beverages), and I still drink coffee occasionally.
  6. Most importantly, the one thing that sealed my decision was that he is working in a hospital that supports breastfeeding.

So, I am still a happy patient of Dr. Didi Dewanto, which is due in 100 days! Hopefully his calm and kind character will get me through the labor. 

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