The previous article looked at why routine, non-sexual-health consults are the most commonly missed opportunity to raise sexual health. This one is the practical follow-up: the actual wording for turning three of the most common routine visits into a natural opening, without making the visit feel like it has changed purpose.
Why these three visits specifically
Repeat contraceptive pill scripts, cervical screening, and pre-travel consults share a pattern: they are frequent, they are usually quick, and Australian data shows GPs consistently under-ask in exactly these settings, despite readily taking a sexual history when a patient presents as a known STI contact. These are also visits where a genuinely relevant sexual health question sits close to the clinical content already being discussed, which makes the transition easier than it might seem.
The pill script
"Since we're renewing your script, I always check in on how things are going more broadly with your sexual health and any side effects you've noticed. Has anything changed?"
This links the question directly to something already on the table, the medication itself, which makes it feel clinically motivated rather than an unrelated add-on.
The Pap smear or cervical screening consult
"While you're here for your screening, I also like to check in on sexual health generally: is everything comfortable for you at the moment, any pain or changes you've noticed?"
Cervical screening already involves a degree of physical and conversational openness that most other consults don't, which makes this one of the easier entry points once the clinician gets used to using it.
The pre-travel consult
"As part of the travel advice, I also cover sexual health, since it's relevant to some of the vaccines and precautions, is that something you'd like to talk through?"
This is the least intuitive of the three but arguably the most useful, because travel consults reach patients, often younger and healthier, who may not otherwise present for a sexual health conversation at all.
Handling the patient who seems surprised by the question
Occasionally a patient will react with mild surprise, given these visits aren't typically associated with the topic. A short, matter-of-fact acknowledgement handles this without making it a bigger moment than it needs to be: "It's just something I ask everyone as part of these visits, no particular reason." Matter-of-fact tone does more work here than an apologetic one. Apologising for the question signals that it was an unusual thing to ask, which undercuts the entire point of normalising it.
Building the habit
None of these scripts need to be memorised word for word. What matters is the underlying pattern, linking the question to something already happening in the consult, rather than treating it as a separate, harder conversation that has to be raised from scratch. Once that pattern is automatic, opportunistic sexual history taking stops being an extra task and becomes part of how the consult already runs.
If this conversation makes you hesitate, that's normal. The Sexual Health Clinician course gives you five CPD hours to build confidence before it matters.
