Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Doctor appointment = long waiting time?

I saw my gynecologist for the first time. My early pregnancy was followed by my generalist and each time I had to wait like 30 minutes passed appointment time, unless I took the earliest appointment spot.

I don't know why but I thought with my gynecologist it would be different. I was so wrong, I waited 2 hours. Her secretary reserved another appointment for me with an anesthetist one hour later, so I actually went with the anesthetist first before waiting for another hour to see her.

Well, she kept apologizing for being late, she actually went to the emergency room earlier. My session with my generalist usually lasted about 40 minutes, and with her, I was out of her room 15 minutes later. During the session, she got a call from her daughter, I heard her saying that she still have one more patient to attend to, then she has to go to another hospital, so she can't be home before 8.30pm. Hard work indeed.

She seems to be a nice doctor, I think she would like to talk more with me if not due to her busy schedule. And, she costs a lot more too, 47 euros vs 22 euros with my generalist. I can see why the French government is encouraging the early pregnancy to be followed by a generalist, it can indeed save a lot of money if every pregnant woman follows suit.

2 comments:

  1. Bee Ean,

    If you are like most adults who have worked hard to accomplish a variety of material successes, I suspect that your acute awareness of the wait times required each time that you go to the doctor is associated with the fact that you have to "make time" in your otherwise busy schedule, particularly since you have a full-time job. I assume, or at least hope, that you always take a highly engaging book with you wherever you go that might include a wait.

    However, I think that the greatest gift that these enforced periods of waiting have to offer you is that of beginning to pry your mind away from the 24hr clock installed in the human psyche at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

    Babies and small children do not run by that clock. It will take at least 6 years, if they are lucky, for it to be forcibly installed in their minds. And even then it will be a tenuous installation.

    They are slow to eat, slow to sleep, slow to wake up, slow to dress, slow to walk, slow to talk, slow to get well from their interminable colds and earaches, slow to let go of your leg when you want to go off to work.

    Every time you wait for one of your health care providers, it is possible that you should thank him or her profusely for helping you to change your internal clock and your psychological and intellectual expectations and assumptions associated with what it means to wait; to spend time; to waste time; to lose valuable time; and, my personal favorite, to kill time.

    I hope that life will be kind enough to accord you a very long time to enjoy the time that you have to spend with your impending little time waster.

    Amitiés

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  2. Wow, 2hours, that is really long waiting. I remember when I was pregnant with JJ. I went to the gyn office at scheduled time, probably 5mins after I arrived, the nurse will take me to the room to get urine, get blood work and in a few minutes, I will see gyn, she will do the routine procedure, check baby size, my weight, and let me know how is the baby doing etc.

    I normally back to work within 1 hour :)

    Might be Americans business is very different from European.

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