The Waiting Room

I hate going to the doctor. I HATE going to the doctor. No amount of wit or rhetoric will adequately convey my disdain. You would have to see my face, my eyes, my hands, and hear my voice to detect the myriad levels of loathing I have. I can point to life-changing misdiagnoses, painful and ultimately useless medical treatments, and bad (I mean terrible on the order of magnitudes) bedside manner to the sources of this abhorrence I harbor. Yet, one thing more than anything else really articulates the “why” of it all; and this is the waiting room.

In no other area of life outside of roller coaster lines and restaurants on very busy nights where I have no other choices do I pay to come on time to an appointment only to wait for an indefinite period of time for a 5-10 minute consultation which may or may not ever really help me. Often, one might be ushered into an examination room to give the illusion of progress toward an appointment to wait for another undisclosed period of time only to be surrounded by possible instruments of torment to mull over how they may be used to poke, prod, cut, and otherwise cause you discomfort in the name of responsible medicine. Please excuse me; agitation causes me to write in unwieldy run-on sentences.

Now, I know that it must be very difficult to practice medicine and to treat illness and disease on a best hunch and to do so knowing your patients expect exact and flawless treatment. Such expectations are foolish. Yet, it is often the medical field itself that propagates such fantasy. There are no definites in this realm of practical science- there are too many variables in each body, environment, and history for treatment not to only be the best educated guess that a $200,000 education can buy. I have no illusions about this. It is the waiting room to which I would apply my angst.

How is it that so much medical progress still cannot cipher the mystery of keeping an appointment? There are reasons- some seem reasonable and others have more to do with treating people as chattel or automobiles on an assembly line. It is insulting, degrading, and unnecessary. It goes against what any business would call good practices. However annoying it may be it exposes a personal trait of my own shaped by our culture, and it isn't pretty.

It betrays a general trend toward entitlement to allow the waiting room such leverage in my heart. As I sat in the examination room I contemplated breaking the equipment around me, writing a letter to the governor, and creating a lobbyist group to convince congress to enact laws against long delays in the waiting room. I updated my Facebook status so the world could know the injustice of my current situation. I imagined staging a coughing fit when the doctor entered so he would feel horrible about making me wait. “I don’t deserve this!” I said to myself.

How infantile.

Put aside the fact that I receive some of the best medical care in the history of the world and that my waiting time might be 90 minutes past my appointment but the reality is that such care is imminent and always at the ready. Forget about the fact that the flu bug will never really present any danger to me nor does a broken bone or the need for an organ to be removed. What is it that I am really complaining about? I am too important to wait. I shouldn’t be treated like this.

The waiting room brings out my ugliness.

 Are there things this particular medical group might do better for their patients? Sure. Yet, what is that to me? I still must conduct myself with gracious magnanimity because that’s what the redeemed do. Those who have held large debts and been forgiven do not beat the ones that are fractionally indebted to them. I am entitled to nothing but justice, and justice is not a friend of mine because I am guilty over and over again. It is unto mercy I have hedged my bets.  

When the doctor entered apologetically I smiled in a way that conveyed that I know what it means to have many people vie for your time with expectations that each one has your full and undivided attention. “One of those days, eh? No worries.” And 5 minutes later our consultation was done and I walked out with prescription in hand.

Then I called someone that had been ill lately who I hadn’t gone yet to visit. We set a time for me to visit. I will be on time and I will apologize for not coming sooner. They will probably be extremely gracious as usual.