Tuesday, April 26, 2005

In the waiting (for hours) room

What a long afternoon it was. My mother had an appointment at the fracture clinic, to check on her upper arm; the notice told me it was scheduled for 2.45pm, and to allow at least one hour.

After I'd gone over to her house to help her shower, dress, make lunch and shop for groceries and Chinese medicine, we were still about twenty minutes early for the appointment. At bang on 2.45pm, we were called up by Radiology to get some new x-rays done. There was the usual I'm-pregnant-so-I-have-to-leave-the-room-as-soon-as-I've-translated-
all-your-instructions-into-poor-Cantonese hassle, but it was over pretty quickly.


Then there was the hour and a half wait to see the doctor. In that time, we guzzled water (from my bottle, because there was no water cooler in the room) and chatted, I read from The Poisonwood Bible (for the second time), and we wondered why the examination room opposite seemed to have the higher turnover.

The doctor's consultation itself, took all of ten minutes.

2 comments:

Happy and Blue 2 said...

I always wonder if they teach classes to doctors in making their patients wait..

Violet said...

happyandblue2: probably - the same classes that teach doctors handwriting skills...

eb: you'd think someone could've told you, wouldn't you? So much for customer service.