Idle Musings of the Active Mind

What the hell is up with medical clinics today?! My wife didn’t feel well (killer sore throat) so we went to the Urgent Care clinic. Now, I realize this is a first come, first served deal. And I realize life-threatening emergencies take precedence over a sore throat. I get that. Really, I do.

But 3 hours??

From the time we walked in until the time we walked out, three hours ticked off the clock. The truly amazing thing here is that we spent a total of–AT MOST–8 minutes with clinic staff. Here’s how it went…

We walked in and approached the receptionist. It took 1-2 minutes to confirm my wife had only been there once before and it was not to receive medical care, so we were handed a clipboard, told to fill it out, and return it once complete. We completed it. Handed it back.

We then retook our seats and waited…for 45 minutes before we were finally called to go to the exam room. We were shown to the room, my wife answered a few questions posed by the nurse and she took my wife’s blood pressure. She’s an efficient nurse. 3 minutes tops.

We then waited…for over 2 hours in the exam room for the doctor. She came in, took a cursory glance at my wife’s throat, swabbed it for testing, and left. This took 2 minutes…maybe 3.

15 minutes later, the doctor came back. The test was inconclusive. She prescribed Zithromax. This took 2 minutes. We left.

3 hours spent at the clinic, 8 minutes (tops) with clinic staff.

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MEDICAL CLINICS?? Do they think OUR time is not worth anything? OMG what an effing joke! As long as I live I will never understand why clinics can’t be more efficient than this.

I stuck my head out of the exam room door a few times to ask what the status was. I was told twice that the doctors (both of them) were busy with emergencies, but they were doing all they could to get to us as quickly as possible.

Okay. Emergencies. I get it. I will wait.

But really, people, when any other business gets swamped with an unusually high volume of business or traffic, they call people in to help out. Why is this not an option in the medical profession?

We were there for 3 hours. When we left, the waiting room was filled to capacity. I have no idea how long those folks were forced to sit and twiddle their thumbs, but I’m betting they had a similar experience.

When did we, as a community of customers–yes, customers–get hoodwinked into thinking it is okay to waste 3 hours for a visit that takes the medical practicitioners 8 minutes to complete?

*sigh*