.. I had an oral surgeon who not only spent all the time in the world with me I needed, but he also would call at night and talk with a family member about how I was doing....AND he would send flowers if he didn't have the time to call at night about my progress...AND his office staff would hand out 15$ gift cards if you were in the waiting room for x-amount of time. I got a card when he was only 5 minutes late!

There are a lot of ways to tell the patient they are the most important person in the world when you are with them....even if that means they have to wait a little bit.

but she never let me leave w/o answering all of my questions. I figured she was treating all her patients that way, so I didn't mind waiting.

I would always schedule my appointments for the end of the day, when I had no place to be afterwards.

All afternoon, every patient on a very busy day hit me with "Oh, just one more thing..." as I was on my way out the door after having addressed the issue they came in for. Eventually, I was an hour and a half behind schedule. Then I visited with a new patient, who immediately hit me with "DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING?!?" I calmed her down and addressed her issue. Then, as I was walking out the door, she said: "Oh, one more thing..."

I thought about, and rejected, the idea of telling her that I was late seeing her because every patient before her also had 'just one more thing'. I thought she had a lot of nerve berating me for being behind schedule when she pulled the same thing as the patients who put me behind schedule in the first place.

I'll be chiming in with my usual Friday Night Buzz thread just as soon as I've gotten good and lubricated...

The bottles in the picture are full...

She is an excellent diagnostician and it is like going to a med school classroom each visit. She methodically explains the what, why and wherefores of your ailment, how to correct the problem and which physician to go to if she isn't able to perform the procedure needed. Unfortunately, she is retiring at the end of the year, but is helping everyone find another doctor to provide the services.

I rarely go for a visit that doesn't take an hour, and that's not for a physical. The other specialists I go to are so exacting in the amount of time spent with their patient that I can set my watch by it...15 minutes tops.

I have run into her at the grocery buying food for some mystery patient who is having problems financially. She makes house calls for elderly who have no family or friends to bring them to her office. She buys extra meals at charity/church events to take to shut-ins who are her patients. See why she is adored?

There are times when I will be visiting with a new patient. During review of their past medical history and current medications, I'll find out that the patient knows nothing about their condition, or what their medications are for.

It annoys me no end when providers don't educate their patients about their disease, or what their medications are for, how to take them, when to take them, potential side effects, etc. Giving my patients all the relevant information is a way of showing them that they can take control of their condition, master it, treat it, and keep it under control.

Nothing is worse for a patient than feeling helpless about a chronic illness. When a patient with a chronic illness starts to show improvement, and thanks me, I tell them that they are getting better due to their own efforts, and compliance with their treatment plan. That gives them the confidence they need to take control of their health.

One aside that not only surprised me, but gave me a chuckle.

I recently had a colonoscopy. Since the regular doctor was out due to a bad knee, a new surgeon did the procedure. He was polite and seemed concerned that I was relaxed and OK with the procedure. At the post procedure visit, he was very good about explaining what he found and why he recommended another procedure several years down the road. As I was leaving, he reached out to shake my hand and told me it was "his pleasure to have served me as a patient." Whoa! No doctor had ever said that to me before AND for a colonoscopy?

when I have a extremely quick visit with my GP I am relieved. I don't feel slighted and I feel reassured he is on top of whatever is going on.

I worry when he goes out of the exam room, coming back in with additional questions, examinations, or tests.

i was always patient when he was behind, because i always knew that he would give me as much time as i needed. sometimes what he was doing was handholding, someone who had gotten troubling news, and he sat w them as long as he thought was needed.

i also had a rheumie that i used to call "the pope of rheumatology". he was the head of the dept in a very big, very good hospital. he was always on time.
this was in the early days of electronic med records, and he was a hold out that kept his written records. he wrote his notes w a fancy fountain pen.
when your time was up, he very conspicuously put the top back on the pen.
i hated him.

of patients who will visit with no one else.

I tend to work fast on busy days, staying on or near schedule by borrowing time from simple visits, like medication refills or review of lab results, to give to patients whose conditions require more time, or for procedures. This way, patients rarely have to wait an inordinate amount of time before getting in to the exam room, and we end on time, allowing the staff to go home when their shifts are over.

My supervising physician, a wonderful man, works much more slowly (he's a slow talker, too; I rattle off stuff like a machine gun) and is consequently ninety minutes to two hours behind schedule every day. His staff rarely goes home until long after the clinic closes. As a result, patients who like long visits gravitate to him, and the get-in-and-get-out patients schedule their visits with me. It keeps our patients happy.

On occasion, one of our satellite clinics that only has enough exam rooms for one provider will need one of us to cover for the absent doctor. The staff there usually begs to have me fill in, rather than my supervising physician, because they know they will get off work on time to go home to their families.