It’s awesome being a doctor because you get to try your best to help people all day, get held up by patients talking about 6 different issues they didn’t even book their appointment for, held up by admin demanding you finish your notes between patients, held up by arguing on the phone with insurance that won’t authorize clearly necessary treatments, held up by nursing staff (understandably) needing your input on things between patients, and then read people bitching online like you were just spending that time drinking coffee and flirting with the nurses when you have a caffeineh eadache because you haven’t even had enough time to stop and drink coffee at all AND admin is bitching at you because you aren’t seeing enough patients every day.
Unfortunately the doctors usually aren’t the ones managing the schedule. The admin / secretaries are.
And good ones, that understand that a new patient with no file, that doesn’t speak the language, that has a history of complications with her previous pregnancies, etc is not gonna be a normal half hour consultation are extremely rare.
Even kind ones that see that you are swamped day in day out just seem to assume that these are teething difficulties, adapting to the position, etc (even after almost two years).
And so that’s how my wife ends up doing a ten hour workday. Nonstop. With no break for lunch because hey, too bad, she finished the morning shift two hours late and now her first afternoon appointment has been waiting for half an hour…
But of course if you tell patients there is no time for them because the few doctors that are here are already overworked…
(to be clear, I’ve been saying the same thing as you to my wife for two years now. But apparently the message is not getting across)
It’s awesome being a doctor because you get to try your best to help people all day, get held up by patients talking about 6 different issues they didn’t even book their appointment for, held up by admin demanding you finish your notes between patients, held up by arguing on the phone with insurance that won’t authorize clearly necessary treatments, held up by nursing staff (understandably) needing your input on things between patients, and then read people bitching online like you were just spending that time drinking coffee and flirting with the nurses when you have a caffeineh eadache because you haven’t even had enough time to stop and drink coffee at all AND admin is bitching at you because you aren’t seeing enough patients every day.
A doctor tha expects those things to happen should schedule based on that knowledge.
If the admin has unrealistic expectations, then those expectations need to be addressed.
Unfortunately the doctors usually aren’t the ones managing the schedule. The admin / secretaries are.
And good ones, that understand that a new patient with no file, that doesn’t speak the language, that has a history of complications with her previous pregnancies, etc is not gonna be a normal half hour consultation are extremely rare.
Even kind ones that see that you are swamped day in day out just seem to assume that these are teething difficulties, adapting to the position, etc (even after almost two years).
And so that’s how my wife ends up doing a ten hour workday. Nonstop. With no break for lunch because hey, too bad, she finished the morning shift two hours late and now her first afternoon appointment has been waiting for half an hour…
But of course if you tell patients there is no time for them because the few doctors that are here are already overworked…
(to be clear, I’ve been saying the same thing as you to my wife for two years now. But apparently the message is not getting across)
And you haven’t even gotten to the medical billing phase that’s been strangling American healthcare systems for decades!
Thankfully we are in France and everybody is fighting tooth and nails to not become that. So far so good.
everybody!?
what an overstatement!