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epitome of incomprehensibility
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It depends. When I was a kid I had a lot of ear infections, and my mother looking back on it now says that the doctors (the pediatrician I had then or a clinic doctor) would prescribe antibiotics too often. Taking too many antibiotics can lead to resistance and antibiotic-resistant infections - but I'm not sure people talked about that as much fifteen or twenty years ago.
On the other hand, when I was thirteen and I had a persistent cough for more than two months and was starting to have headache every evening, it definitely helped me to see a doctor and get my problem figured out. It was good for emotional as well as physical reasons, because I was freaking out that I had something fatal like lung cancer (despite being, well, thirteen, and never having smoked - it'd be rare, albeit not impossible - but I was a bit of a hypochondriac). I had an appointment and then an x-ray, which showed that it wasn't a lung problem but a sinus infection. That time, prescribing antibiotics was probably a good decision since it finally got rid of the thing.
(An aside, but another problem with antibiotics I've heard about is that they make some people constipated by temporarily killing off "good germs" in your intestines, making digestion take longer. So it can help to take probiotics at the same time. On the other hand, a friend of mine said that when she took antibiotics for an unrelated infections, her lactose intolerance seems to have disappeared. I'm a bit skeptical about the cause and effect there, since I don't know how a particular strain of gut bacteria would stop you from producing lactase (the enzyme that digests milk sugar). It seems that the enzyme just stops getting produced in some adults, especially if they don't drink a lot of milk, and that's okay. (But but I miss ice cream, and lactase-added milk is expensive.) Anyway. Human bodies are complicated.)
I would feel a bit more secure if I had my own doctor, though. It's hard to get your "own" GP - my father has one, my mom's on a waiting list - and it would probably take me a few years to get one if I tried. I know I'm privileged to live in Canada, where a lot of medical expenses are covered, and to be fairly young and healthy even if I'm not rich... but I still can get a bit of hypochondria in my anxiety phases, and it would help to be able to discuss potentially embarrassing medical questions with someone who (hopefully) knows what they're talking about and is patient.
Still. Maybe it's all for the best that a doctor is spared my whining every few months. (Oh look! I have a mole on my foot! Maybe it's cancer! No? Okay? But it isn't beautiful. Doctor, why aren't my feet beautiful?) I exaggerate. I hope.
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