onmymind

If you are familiar with Canadian issues at all, you would know that one nearing the top of the list is the shortage of doctors available and the growing number of citizens without a primary health care worker (aka ‘family physician’) to monitor any health issues they may have (from colds to cancer).

Thankfully I am currently one of the “lucky” citizens who has a family doctor - “lucky” being in parentheses for a reason. Let me tell you just how “lucky” I am.

A typical visit to the doctor’s office, if I even bother to make an appointment, begins with entering what is designed to look like a walk-in clinic. But whatever you do, DO NOT just walk in – they will refuse to see you! Then, once I sign in for my 9 AM appointment, I sit for an average of 2 hours before I am even ushered into a cubical sized examination room. This always confuses me, because, at 9 AM, I am the first appointment of the day! So I sit and stare at the walls and try to avoid the germ ridden magazines (that have seen many a snot covered hand in their five year shelf life). I watch the nurses walk around aimlessly - telling each other the latest joke that they’ve heard, or discussing their child’s soccer tournament. One time I sat and watched a nurse carrying around a MacLeans magazine, showing it to other nurses, and scoffing at the cover story “Your Dog Can Get Better Healthcare than You”. I watched them laugh, looked again at the clock and thought to myself “Well duh!!!”. 

Eventually I will see the doctor far back in the hallway beyond the check-in counter. I think to myself “Oh there she is… with her coat on… being welcomed by the nurses… and it is now 10:15 AM!”. Now that she has finally arrived, it’s time for her to finish her coffee. She tries to hide in the back, but I can sometimes see her doing JUST that! Then once she’s let the coffee settle, she makes her way to the check-in counter/nurse’s station and proceeds to tell them the latest joke that she’s heard and discusses her child’s soccer tournament. She disappears out of sight again for a little while and comes back wearing her official white coat. Now she’s speaking quietly so that all of us in the waiting room can’t hear. I can only assume that she is being conferenced on the number of patients who have either left or who have threatened to walk out, because of having to wait so long. Twenty minutes or so later I will FINALLY be called to a room. Almost instantly she will join me, smile and say “Hello.”. She quickly follows her greeting by asking me why it is that I am “visiting today”. I think to myself “In all of that time you took to see me, you couldn’t have opened my chart and found that out for yourself?” As frusterating as this can be, my favorite instance is when she is the one who calls me in for an ‘emergency’ appointment (for example - to discuss test results) and after I’ve arrived she, EVEN THEN, has no clue why I have come to her office. 

Since by now I am used to doing her job and monitoring my own health care, I will pull out a little slip of paper so that I remember to tell her all of the things that she wanted to discuss with me. She sits down and sighs and then proceeds to tell me to “hurry up”. And let’s me know that she doesn’t have time to talk about more than one thing. So I try to fool her and make it sound like, at least a couple of the issues, are the same thing. Kind of like the guests always did on the Montel Williams show when they were chosen to ask Sylvia Brown only one question. My doctor will go with it for a moment, but then cuts me off and runs out of the room. And after this flash moment is over, I realize that SHE NEVER ANSWERED A SINGLE QUESTION – nor did she examine me! So I proceed back to the nurse’s station to make another appointment… so that my doctor can once again have a chance for to ACTUALLY ‘care for’ me.

I stare down through the tiny window at the secretary fiddling with paper clips, taking sips of her tea and reorganizing the same pile of papers a dozen times – seemingly doing anything to avoid eye contact. Eventually she looks up and snarls with a simple “Yes?”. I request an appointment and try to seem as pleasant as possible (in hopes that this will, one day, help her not act like such a fill in the blank). And then my favorite part happens. After a couple of entries into the database of her plasma screened computer, she looks up at me and asks “What is this appointment for?” ARRRRGGGG!!! I tell her, although I am convinced that she only asks for her own benefit, and so that all of the waiting patients can hear. Thankfully I’ve never had to make an appointment for something embarrassing. I tell her anyway, and know that my doctor will ask me the very same question… when I see her again… like always.

… To be continued.

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