"Oh, You have an accent. Where is it from?"

So, once we were unpacked I thought it was time to register with a doctor.
This isn't quite as straight forward as it is in the UK. Americans tend to have a different doctor for almost everything; a paediatrician, a dermatologist, an allergist, an urologist, a rheumatologist, doctors in womens' health, mens' health, internal medicine, etc. The list was daunting and endless. I just wanted to find a "good old G.P."! Finally, after looking and sounding like the village idiot, I was directed to Family Practice. Hooray!
So, here is my advice. Find a good medical centre that has a Family Practice and choose a primary physician. This is your G.P. and he or she will direct you to all other practitioners as required. Hopefully, most of them will be in the same building as your primary and will be billing you the same way. (Did I forget to mention....healthcare is all private here and you will need good health cover. This needs to be one of the first questions you will ask of the health centre...Is your healthcare provider accepted at your clinic of choice?).

So, our clinic was chosen and a few months later I had cause to visit with my son who was nine years old at the time.
The general practice is for a nurse to greet you and take the particulars ie. height, weight, and so on. As she was writing the details down I quietly asked my son if he could recall what height he had been when we had arrived in America. The nurse then said "Oh, you have an accent. Where is it from?"
I replied that we had recently moved here from England.
"Well", she said, "You speak very good English"!
I heard my son's jaw drop and he looked at me as if to say "and you're going to let her look after me! Where does she think English comes from?"
We couldn't wait to get out of the clinic to laugh. They say laughter is the best medicine, it was definitely a good trip to the doctor!

While we are on this subject I'd advise a trip around a pharmacy such as Walgreens or visit the website http://www.walgreens.com/ to acquaint yourself with the general terms. CVS paharmacy are another big chain with a very good website http://www.cvs.com/

I hunted high and low for paracetamol and verruccae ointment. Neither terms are used here. Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen seem to be the main pain relievers, marketed very well by the brand leaders like Tylenol, Advil and Motrin.
A Plantars wart is the name used for a verruccae. Hopefully, this small snippet of information will save your poor feet a lengthy hike.