I've been having a problem with tendonitis in my wrist. It's been getting worse since I started my new job, so I went to my doctor and he recommended I see a physical therapist at any one of a number of physical therapy clinics in the area and a hand specialist at a satellite sports medicine clinic run by the University of Washington (my doc is at a satellite family practice clinic run by the university).

I was able to choose from a variety of upcoming appointments with the physical therapist. No problem.

When I called the sports medicine clinic, it turned out their hand and wrist person is only in that office on Mondays and has nothing open until 3 weeks from today. "Is November 10th okay for you?"

Sure, I'm a brand new patient with a worsening condition that's driven me to seek treatment from an orthopedic specialist, but I'll just explain to my condition that the doctor isn't available for three weeks and it will happily go into remission until the doctor can see me.

If you're in say Vegas, and you call up a hotel, say "I'm in town, got any rooms," and they're full up, they'll try to help you get booked somewhere else. If you call a doctor, they'll tell you when he/she is available, and if that doesn't work for you, that's too bad.

I know that doctors are not hoteliers, but it would be nice to see an attitude that says: "We understand you may be in pain. If we can't serve you within a reasonable time period, we'll be happy to recommend some other doctors who might have an appointment available sooner."

Best I could do was get waitlisted for a sooner appointment if someone cancels.

Of course, you can bet I'm now going to shop around.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Just Personal, Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.