Every time I go to the doctors, I end up sitting in the waiting room for about an hour after my appointment time, waiting even longer in the clinic room, and then talking to the doctor for 10 minutes or less. We have to schedule our day to make these appointments, rearrange prior commitments, and make sure we have enough to get to the appointment if it’s in another town.
My last appointment was at 3:30 p.m I was not called back to talk to the nurse for 2 hours. I waited another 30 minutes to see the doctor, and he talked to me for less than 10 minutes before sending me on my way. When doctors do that, it makes you want to find a new doctor, but that is almost impossible to do because doctors get filled up quickly.
What’s even more frustrating is that sometimes those doctors take a week off, which everyone needs a break, but it’s very inconvenient for the patient. I think that doctors should have a backup, to replace them when they are gone, so you are not waiting months out for an appointment. They should also have more than two doctors in an office, so there aren’t several people scheduled at the same time, waiting hours to be seen for 5 minutes.
The health industry needs a lot of work, and some doctors have no bedside manner, so they are very rude and do not know how to communicate properly. I think they need to see their patients a lot longer than 5 or so minutes, and they should make sure their patients have no other concerns or questions or anything else they need to talk about. They also need to make it so that the appointment isn’t topic-specific. I don’t go to the doctors just because of my stomach problems, I go to the doctor because there are more than a few ailments that are affecting my everyday life and that I need to talk to them about, especially when it’s about test results of scans, or blood work.
The healthcare world will be a better place if it started thinking more about the patients and less about the money!
