The doctor is not yet in
AGOOD number of well-meaning friends tell me when one reaches the age of 70, a sequence of illnesses begins. Although, I hesitantly admit that I am now hovering around that age, it is reason enough that I go and see medical practitioners for consultation every now and then.
Ironically, that regular exercise of mine has led me to discover that doctors – whether a cardiologist, pulmonologist, urologist, or surgeon – suffer the same “sickness.” That is, they don’t arrive on time at their clinics.
One wonders what is that schedule painted on glass on the upper half of the door or, the metal-cut fastened on a wooden slab for?
A typical doctor’s clinic hours start at 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on a particular day (another set of times in the afternoon).
On any given day, patients start arriving at 9:00 o’clock. And by 10:30 the doctor is still nowhere in sight. I also discovered that there are two customary reasons, as given by the secretary:
One, “the doctor is still making the rounds.” That means her boss is paying a visit to every patient of his confined in the hospital which, fortunately, is located in the same building where the clinics are located. Or, within the same compound.
What if the hospital is situated at the far end of town?
Two, “On his way here, the doctor received an ‘emergency call’ and he is now at the ER.”
The emergency patient is probably the one who gets sick and tired of waiting for the doctor and decided to barge into the ER all by himself and jumps on the emergency bed.
Poor ER staff, they have no choice but to call the doctor by cellphone and tell him about his patient in the emer- gency room.
There is a third reason that I was told about. But I believe it is not credible enough to be explained in an opinion-page column.
Anyway, to satisfy the curious, here is that scenario:
Act 1. The scene is in a Hospital-A where our actor-doctor has 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. clinic hours. He calls his secretary at Hospital-B inquiring how many patients are listed or are waiting for him there. He is told, four.
He says he will just finish the last of his 15 patients by 2:00 p.m., but disregards the four who are in Hospital-B waiting for him since 9:00 a.m.
Waiting for my always-late doctor has given me an opportunity to observe some patients there waiting – “para reconocer,” as my old man used to say everytime he brought me to his cousin-doctor in the old hometown when I was a kid.
Anyway, the present waiting list includes some of the following:
One patient starts whistling to while the time away and entertain himself. By 1 o’clock, he becomes restless, walking up and down the hallway outside the doctor’s clinic. He is unsmiling and frowning.
Still another patient comes early before 10 o’clock in a pensive mood. After an hour, he talks loudly and starts mentioning names of people who are, of course, strangers to every waiting patient there.
No kindred soul is brave enough to tell him or his companion that the right clinic for the now loquacious guy is located in the basement of the building.
And the last, but not the end of these waiting patients, is an elderly woman in her 70s who wishes loudly – “I wish the doctor would serve us a packed lunch!”