The doctor’s waiting room has changed in recent years. There’s no longer the magazine and newspaper rack to keep you busy while awaiting your visit. Patients are now glued to their smartphones in the waiting rooms even though you see signs saying “no cell phone usage.”
I am not a patient person, although I am a patient of many doctors and wait prolonged periods of time in their waiting rooms. This drives me bonkers even if I have nowhere else to go.
When they finally call your name, like in a “Seinfeld” episode, you’re all smiles, gloating to the others in the waiting room, only to find they are putting you in a private room. This makes you feel like your wait is over and you’ll be seeing the doctor any minute, but yet have another 30-45-minute wait.
The old waiting room is my least favorite part of any doctor’s visit. I never understood how all these intelligent people that go through years of schooling, residency and internships cannot manage time.
How can they get one to two hours behind schedule? Aren’t they taught in medical school to get to the point, be polite, limit the small talk and respect people’s time?
The only doctors that seem to manage time properly are the psychiatrists. When your hour is up you’re out of there. That timer goes off, the shrink looks at his watch and says, “same time next week?”
There is an exception. There is one waiting room I don’t mind waiting in. When I have virtual telemedicine appointments and the doctor is late I can hang out in the comforts of my home and watch TV, use the computer and raid the frig — a waiting room designed with the patient in mind!
The other pet peeve I have is the doctor’s handwriting. Again, these folks of high intellect and high IQ can barely write. I know people with a sixth-grade education who have beautiful penmanship, yet when I transferred medical records from one clinic to another, the new clinic could not decipher the handwritten notes from my former provider.
I believe all people who go into health care and medicine, especially those becoming medical doctors, need to have classes in both how to handwrite and how to manage time so people aren’t in the waiting room half the day.
I’ve talked to a couple of pharmacists who have such a hard time reading some doctors’ handwriting that they must call their respective offices to find out the prescription. This becomes a waste of the pharmacist’s and doctors’ limited staff’s precious time.
On my last doctor visit, I told my doc “Getting old is really tough! I get up in the morning, go to the bathroom and stand for 20-25 minutes before I can urinate, an hour later I go back to the bathroom and sit for 30-35 minutes before I have a bowel movement.”
Then the Doc tells me don’t feel bad, “I get up in the morning, pee, take a dump and in no time get out of bed, shower, eat breakfast, and by the time I get to my office, I’m an hour late and there’s already 5 patients in the waiting room.”
Growing older may not be fun, but sure is funny!
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James “Kimo” Rosen is a humorist and photographer who lives in Kapa‘a with his dog.
