The Waiting Room

"What if the rest of society ran the way your Doctor's office ran? You'd never get anything accomplished unless it happened by chance or you managed to wait long enough for something to occur. I think half of all illnesses could be eradicated if you didn't have to spend three hours in the germ-infested waiting room beside the child with what sounds like TB, or the woman who appears just slightly beyond quarantine. Certainly we'd all be less bitchy and our blood pressure would be much lower if somehow physicians better managed their client times."

I wrote that Thursday while seated in my doctor's waiting room, after having just checked in, and mere moments after having accepted my fate of waiting upon being told he was running "...at least an hour and a half behind schedule."

It's easy to be put out when you have an appointed time, and the keeper of that appointment is behind. It's easy to, but we shouldn't. We've all been taught to "do unto others as we'd have done unto ourselves" but doesn't it seem like that doesn't apply to family physicians? It seems they do it on purpose, a control issues perhaps, you say, asserting their supposed superiority over the common-folk. Or maybe they just book too many patients for the time available, knowing that their day will stretch into the evening, your plans be damned.

Maybe.

Friday morning I returned to the clinic to have bloodwork done - a routine to see where we're at with these migraines, which for the record, have been near non-existent in the last three months - the lab opens at 8:30 and there were already 3 or 4 patients waiting in the room when I arrived moments after the official opening time. The walk-in portion of the clinic doesn't open until 9, but that doesn't stop some walk-ins from arriving well before, hoping to get that first appointment slot so they can get on with their day and maybe get relief from their ailments or answers to their questions.

On this morning a young woman was already filling in the information sheet on the clipboard in anticipation of being the first one in, though no clinic staff were to be seen - though the lights behind the reception desk were illuminated. When the lone staff member finally appeared back at the desk from down the hall where she had been prepping the exam rooms, she was pounced on by the waiting woman, demanding to see the doctor.

"I'm sorry, the clinic doesn't open until 9 o'clock."

My ears perked up. This should be interesting...

"But I've been here since just after 8, waiting." Her voice already had an irritating tone, the type that develops from years of experience and use, and her body language screamed impatience. "And why do I have to fill out this form everytime I come her, don't you have my information on file?"

"I'm sorry, but the doctor isn't in yet. And if you have been here before as a walk-in and not a patient, your information is not kept and recorded in a permanent file, this sheet gets added to the previous file"

"Well, when will he be here?"

"I don't honestly, know." came the receptionist's reply.

"Well that's just stupid! Why can't he show up for his shift like everyone else? If the clinic opens at 9 he should be here..."

And off she went, berating the receptionist until she realized she wasn't being listened too, so she took a seat in the waiting and room and continued her angry critique of all things wrong with society to her boyfriend (God help him) who seemed amused by her take on things, and nodded in affirmation when she turned to him for support of her position. It appeared she'd been angry for a good portion of her life and wasn't in any mood to change that just yet.

I chuckled at her immaturity and air of superiority that allowed her to make herself look like a complete boob in front of a room full of strangers, and duly noted life's ability to give me exactly what I needed at this moment. I looked at my phone, at the passage I had composed just the day before in this very waiting room, and let the lesson sink in.

Sometimes it pays to bite your tongue and let things be what they are, without wading emotionally into the middle of the events before you. Time has a way of bringing things into clearer focus, and in that light, maybe waiting isn't such a bad thing; indeed maybe we could all use a bit more practice at it.

And maybe, just maybe, that's why at your Doctor's office, it's called a waiting room. Only in the Grand Scheme of things, it's life's lessons we're waiting for and not just the doctor.