Karen Colliander

Okay, so doctors in Denmark. It’s a touchy subject. Most Danes rarely go to their doctors. As an American, I’m willing to acknowledge that I may perhaps rely too heavily on them. It is what it is.
Karen is my third GP (general practitioner) that I’ve had since I’ve moved to Copenhagen. I switched to her recently because I was less than satisfied with the service of my previous doctor, also located in Frederiksberg. I took a risk, paid the 185kr for a new yellow card with a new doctor’s name on it, and started from square one.
I have visited Karen probably about six or seven times since I changed to her last spring. This is the nature of primary care in Denmark, and not necessarily reflective of the service received. Karen has ten minutes scheduled per patient, and if you don’t get things resolved, you have to come back. Again and again. Where it’s rough is that she has so many patients that the waiting time to get an appointment is often three weeks. It makes follow up on anything pretty difficult.
All of that said, I have learned that if you schedule an appointment with her ‘just to talk’ before you get sick (or in my case, afterward), she is quite helpful at shedding light on how things work, and is more willing to take a more holistic approach to your care. She is otherwise a victim of lack of time, like most GPs in the area, and will likely not be as comprehensive as you might hope when you go in with more than just a cold.
Unlike some archaic doctors in the area, she has a call queuing system installed so when you call in during her phone consultation window, you never get a busy signal. Nothing is more frustrating than being deathly ill and having to make 76 repeat phone calls to your doctor in an hour timespan just to get through, so I find this to be a very important bonus. She has always been very helpful on the phone and in getting same day appointments for urgent problems, and is quite responsive over email with prescription renewals (via cure4you) too.
I give three stars because I expect more from general practitioners here, and have something to compare it to, albeit that experience is rooted outside of the country. I would love to someday update this post and change it to five.