Yesterday I had an appointment with my oncologist. He entered the room apologizing for being late. I had hardly noticed because the nurse who does the work on the study that I’m in was chatting with me. I also learned a long time ago to take something to occupy my time in medical offices.
He said he’d had a few patients a few days before that needed extra time and the patient after that wouldn’t even shake his hand because he was 30 minutes late. At that point, I looked at my watch and saw that my “appointment time” had been almost an hour before. Like I said I hadn’t noticed and since this appointment was scheduled for 11:30 I had marked out the entire day since it’s a 90-mile drive one way.
This sparked a conversation with him. I said I felt that if he was late for my appointment that meant he was spending time with someone else who needed it right then. It also meant that if I needed more time, he would spend it with me. It’s all give and take. If you want the doctor to spend time with you be accepting of the time they spend with others.
Even before Mike’s illness, I would take something to the doctor’s office to read. That’s gotten much easier since the invention of the smartphone, laptops, and public wi-fi. I’ve found an app that saves articles that I want to read for later. I’ve also pulled out my laptop and made an order for Mike while we were waiting in a doctor’s office.
I always had my laptop and camera whenever Mike was in the hospital. If I ran out of pictures to edit, designs that I wanted to work on, or work that I needed to do I would go take pictures. I had a bag that I took with us when I thought I might be waiting that had my laptop, at least one book, some snacks, my stereo headphones so I could drown out conversations of others with music, and whatever I thought I might need out of my purse. It wasn’t easy to carry around especially if we needed to hurry. It mostly kept me occupied.
The next time you’re waiting on a doctor give them a little grace. They may have had to give someone some horrible news or maybe a patient has questions that take a little longer to answer. Don’t you want that doctor to feel like they can take more time with you if they need to?
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Have some Patience.
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Onward!
