Running Late
Here is a typical bogus article for the masses called 9 Real Reasons Your Doctor’s Running Late. To give them credit, though, they mention some of the real reasons right up front:
Of course, there are dozens of good reasons why doctors are racing against the clock: overbooked calendars, paperwork and administrative duties, laborious phone calls with insurance companies and pharmacies, and on-call hospital duties, to name a few — not to mention emergencies and patient care that takes longer than expected. What’s especially challenging is that privacy laws prohibit doctors from sharing details about other patients, so they can’t even explain why they’re late.
Then they go into some sappy reasons from different specialists that come off kind of lame to me. This is not to say these incidents don’t happen but it is much more rare than the above. So, in an effort to teach the public, please leave a comment on what you think makes doctors’ late. For example:
- Mrs. Jones showed up 12 minutes and demanded to be seen. When she was told “no” she claimed to have chest pain because she knew that would get her in. Then she wanted to talk about gas issues.
- The drug rep would not take a polite rejection and continued with his closing line until I just turned around and walked away. And he still followed me almost into the patient’s room.
My Friday at 4:30 PM was having a conference with the clinic director and an irate patient who insisted that was entitled to narcotics by virtue of the “previous doctor” rule. After running 1/2 hour late explaining to the patient that medicine has no common law rule of prior contracts. And he screamed and wanted another doctor. Screamers get drugs – hurry up and give them what they want! Antibiotics for the “flu” – steroid shots for allergies – good medicine, or feed the clock and silence the shrieking?