Waiting Rooms

Did you ever notice that doctor or dental offices who have reputations for making you wait a long time for your appointment have the worst magazines? I had an appointment yesterday with a huge orthopaedic practice and, again, I waited more than an hour to actually be called.

The waiting room was as large as a spacious apartment with, easily, fifty plus seats. The magazine choices were local freebies which are mostly ads, a couple of outdated "TIME"s, "HIGHLIGHTS" for children and, of all things a "SKIING" publication. That one certainly did not seem appropriate for a lobby full of people with casts, canes and, other ortho issues.

I thought I had struck GOLD when I stumbled across a "COUNTY LIVING".....That could entertain me for a while. A few pages in I noticed a "Got Milk" ad featuring a 15 year old LeAnn Rimes, confused I checked the date on the front cover.....March 1998!

Come on you prominent orthopaedic practice, you have patients of all ages, they have physical issues and generally not contagious at all. You have a muted 32" inch TV in a corner of an 1100 square foot room......please spring for some decent magazines.....you can afford it! Sure we should have known by now to bring a book and, we do have our cell phones but, we were supposed to turn them off upon entry...help us out here!

I also find it funny when I take my 90 year old Father-In-Law to his geriatric practice that the magazines are "ARTHRITIS TODAY" and other publications not on aging but, about being fully aged. Most of the very elderly are exhausted by the trip from the car to the waiting room and either snooze or enjoy new surroundings and could care less about reading while they wait to be called. On the other hand, there are just as many middle aged people who brought them there who, again, have to fight for those few outdated magazines scattered about.

Then you go to the doctor when you are really sick.....magazine selections remarkably get better but, you feel like crap and the person next to you looks worse than crap. Do you really want to touch anything around you here?

When you advance from the "Waiting Room" to the exam room in all of these situations there waits the "Pot of Gold" of publications. You go from waiting an hour with nothing to read to all this stuff you can't wait to get into......then the nurse and the doctor finally give you their full attention and you never have the chance to pick one up.

I have to give the dental profession top honors for their magazine selections. In most offices I have been in everything is interesting and current. My own "Primary" dentist has at least three magazines of interest for men, women and children in his eight seat waiting room but, the chair barely gets warm until I am called back with a suggestion to bring what I am reading. In the exam room there is actually a TV that is tuned into something worth watching. I don't even have to turn off my phone.

I wonder if all this could be one of the reasons that I will go to a doctor at a very last resort and, never go a day past my six month teeth cleaning?