Over the past year,  I have spent more than my fair share of waiting in doctor’s offices and medical waiting rooms.  While it is one of the most tedious things (waiting for an appointment), it is a necessary evil of the medical world.  When visiting a specialist, they typically book their initial appointments into 20-30 minute time blocks (or so I presume from the receptionist’s little scheduling book). Somehow though, either due to chatty patients or patients with too many problems (I am guilty of both of these things), the doctor is always behind schedule.

What makes  my visit to the doctor less tiring and frustrating tends to be the doctor’s office waiting room.  There are different little details that all make a difference in my “waiting” experience. I have noticed something in these doctor’s offices and medical waiting rooms, there seems to be four distinct types of waiting rooms.  I have listed them in order of peacefulness and making my day a little better.

The Kid & Senior Friendly:

There is a giant area or box of toys for the children to play with, there are kids books everywhere.  A tonka truck sits in the middle of the aisles where you are trying to walk, and you nearly every time step right on it and go tripping and falling (well at least that always happens to me).  There are sniffling, crying, screaming children everywhere (the poor things are sick, and just dont know why! Its heartbreaking).  While there are various ages of adults also waiting in the sitting area with you, you will notice the abundance of seniors, with canes, walkers or scooters.  Unfortunately since it is usually a cramped waiting room, the poor unsuspecting seniors have to finagle their way through the maze of children on the ground and the children’s toys that get stuck underneath their mobilty scooter or walker. 

While many of the seniors are happy to see the cheerful smiling faces of children, I am pretty sure that they don’t appreciate it when that same giggling child sneezes in their face. I have watched this happen time and time again.  Mixed in with all of this, is an assortment of people of all ages and illnesses.  The magazines are typically family oriented or child oriented, with tattered pages and at least 2 years out of date. All in all, these waiting rooms are not half bad, though I always feel like I walk out of there with a new flu or cold and a headache.

The Communal:

The interesting thing about many new specialists and medical professionals is that when starting up their practice, they need a space to place their office.  Likely due to the budgetary aspects, what ends up happening is they set up their practice in a communal office or room. This type of waiting room serves as a holding area for multiple doctors, dentists, and other medical practitioners.  I have also seen a variety of acupuncturists, tanning salons, immunization clinics and travel centers sharing their waiting room with a doctor.  This makes for an eclectic mix of individuals waiting for their appointments.  It becomes a game of guessing who is waiting for what office, and what illness, problem or need they have. The seats are never comfortable, and it always smells like a brand new waiting room for some reason, sterile and lacking books and magazines.  The depletion of magazines is most likely due to visitors leaving with the magazine they were reading, as there is no receptionist close by to notice their misdemeanor.

The communal waiting room typically has a bit more room than a regular medical practice, though I always end up sitting beside the coughing patient and thinking to myself, “I wonder what they are here for. . . ? Should I move over a couple seats?” and lo-and-behold they get called into the Immunization and TB testing clinic. . .

The “Has Not Changed Since the 70’s”:

We all know this type of waiting room, most of our own family doctors waiting rooms are like this.  The orange coloured chairs that seem to have been bought in the 1960’s, the oak table with various issues of Highlights for Kids (from 10 years ago), the pile of disheveled magazines that haven’t been replaced since you first started going to this doctor 20 years ago, and of course the “piece de résistance” the complete collection of Readers Digests scattered throughout the office.  This type of waiting room has a comfortable familiar feel to it, as you know the 70 year old receptionist “Blanche” by name, the walls have the same patterned faded wall-paper from the 70’s and you know that you may even recognize some of the other patients in the office from visit to visit.

This type of office, while not that entertaining or boisterous, gives you a welcoming expectation of the “traditional doctor with stethoscope and white lab coat” calling you into his office to talk to you about your family (which of course he knows everyone’s name).  The waiting room that feels like it is stuck in the 70’s never really changes, it just gets the occasional new (2 year old) magazine every once in a while.

The High-Brow Spa-like Fancy:

Ah! This is by far my favourite type of waiting room.  There is a spa-like feel when you open the door to this office, it feels like you have walked in to a Amazon rainforest with chirping birds, waterfalls and peaceful harp music being plucked by angels.  The receptionist is always young and attractive, with a headset glowing blue on her head, she gives you an acknowledging nod that almost seems to say “Welcome and Namaste”.  There are comfortable chairs to sit on, with ample room separating you from other patients. There is a watercooler carefully disguised as a rock fountain in the corner, where fresh purified, ionized etc. chilled water pours out of the tap.  The receptionist will offer you a cup of that cold fresh water with a slice of lemon (of course giving you an actual wine glass of water) or offers you a cup of freshly brewed green-rooibos tea picked from the hilltops of somewhere in Nepal.

You sit down to sip your water or tea, and look down at the beautifully hand carved table beside you to find this month’s issue of every magazine under the sun.  There are fresh white and yellow flowers carefully placed throughout the office.  This peaceful and serene waiting room almost seems like a little piece of heaven, you almost are sad to have to get up for your appointment. The waiting room never seems packed, and no one talks above a gentle soothing whisper it seems.  This waiting room style seems perfect and serene, until a mother comes in with a screaming child, you feel sorry for her as her poor child seems in pain with some illness, yet the soothing calming sounds of the room and the comfortable chairs seem to calm the child’s cries to a gentle whimper, and by the time it is their turn for their appointment, the child is asleep.  Ah, this waiting room is the dream. I wish they were all this peaceful.

I am still refining my opinion of the four styles of waiting rooms, but so far it seems that these are the categories I have run into. If only every doctor’s office I went to had the soothing peaceful tranquility feel, though I am just happy these days to actually have an appointment within the next 3 months at all, so I will take what I can get.

Ciao

Deanna

Every time I end up at the Apple Store at Pacific Centre, I stand there in the sea of bright orange, light blue and dark blue shirts, that scurry around looking for their appointments to take care of.

Now that I have been there a few times, I know the drill:  Make an appointment a week in advance, show up 5 minutes early to said appointment, then wait for another 20-60 minutes for someone to call your name.  In the 20-60 minutes you wait for a blue shirt to call your name or walk up to you, you eagerly watch all the hustle and bustle around you, hoping somehow that things may be on time.

Typically, I end up finding out that there is an über long wait for my pre-scheduled appointment, and go shopping next door. (Ooh! H&M, Hollister Co, Miss Sixty and more!)

Today was lucky, I only waited 20 minutes. I have to say, either they are getting quicker and more expedient at their booking appointments, or they decided to hire more people to wear blue shirts.

I handed my precious MacbookPro over to the blue shirt guy, who is absolutely cheerful and awesome, and he tells me that I will have my computer back tomorrow as good as new.  I am skeptical, as this is what they told me last month, and not only did they not fix the problem, they made it worse.

(The problem with my MacbookPro: From day one, my laptop has zapped me. It gives me a continual buzzing feeling in my finger tips, though this is nothing new.  I also can reproduce an electrical charge to other objects and people when holding my laptop.  Well, @nachoman informed me that this was not normal, and since I wanted my laptop in ship shape for this term of marking papers, I took  my laptop in last month to get checked out)

I have never had any problems with my Macs over the years, yet this laptop has been giving me grief. Oh well! Alas, I will find out *fingers crossed* tomorrow if they are able to fix this shocking problem (har har!).

Not that you really need to know, but I will keep you updated on my laptop’s status.  As we all know that I am like a lost puppy without my laptop around, leashed to the desktop iMac in my home office.

Have a great evening.

Ciao

Deanna

For the past 4 months, I have been waiting for my appointment for an MRI at the Peace Arch Hospital.  From talking to numerous people over the past few months, I have realized that 4 months is not really that long to be waiting for a scan of my head.  Several patients I know have been waiting for 6 – 8 months or longer for their MRI at St. Paul’s or Surrey Memorial.  Now, for anyone who has been waiting for a MRI, CAT scan or other procedure that will help figure out what is wrong with them, the waiting game is absolutely frustrating.

I know that the hospitals and MRI machines are overloaded with people on wait lists, and that emergency scans take precedence (as they should), but after waiting this long, I am actually excited about going in for my MRI. Yes, I am looking forward to being shoved into a large claustrophobic machine and listening to a noisy racket while magnetic fields penetrate my skull.

After my 4 month wait, and fingers crossed that everything is okay, I am going for my MRI tomorrow morning. Hooray!