I had to take my mum for her yearly neurologist appointment last week. The office requests that you arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled appointment. I appreciate that it is almost impossible to keep a doctor’s office running on time. If I want the doctor to spend time with me, I need to realize that he/she will also be spending time with the other patients and the schedule will not be running perfectly. All that said to say I wasn’t surprised that we were going to have to wait. I was surprised at how rude the receptionist was to an elderly patient who arrived late. The receptionist informed her that she was 5 minutes late and that she had been told to arrive 15 minutes early. Really!!! The receptionist knew that the doctor had not been waiting for this patient to arrive he was running late. I glanced at my watch and knew he was running at least 15 minutes late because my mum hadn’t gone in yet. Did I mention that all of this was loud enough for the entire office/waiting room to hear? I was about ready to comment when the nurse called my mum’s name – 21 minutes after the scheduled appointment and 36 minutes after we had arrived. Wow!! I really hope that elderly patient arriving 5 minutes late didn’t throw the whole office off of its written in stone schedule. Maybe cutting people a little slack would be a good idea especially when the doctor is running late.
Miss Ann Says 