The British Obsession with Queuing and a Visit to the Doctor - Part 2
Now the other thing I can not get my head around is the bizarre way in which the patients just enter the doctor’s office. Let me give you an example. So there I was sitting waiting my turn to see the doctor. I know there are people in front of me and I’m frantically scanning the sick patients desperately trying to work out where I am in the imaginary queue. When, who should walk in from the door from the stairs. Yes you’ve guessed it, the doctor. Now it was about lunch time so I guess he was retuning from his very healthy low cholesterol lunch. All the time we were sitting there eyes transfixed on the office door waiting for someone to come out and the doctor wasn’t even in there. He walks through the door, strolls past his waiting sickly patients and heads for his office. As of course he is bound to do. But on being recognised the patient, or should I say patients, a family of mother, father and child jump up from their chairs and hotly in pursuit on the doctor's heels, literally follow him into his office as if it is a race or at least a way to stop anyone else jumping the queue. Because, remember it is not a crime punishable by death here.
So there he is, the doctor has just made it to his office after his healthy lunch. Has not had time to collect his thoughts, put down his brief case let alone take his coat off and he turns around and two adults and a sickly child are breathing down his neck. Now as I said earlier, we British would win gold, silver and bronze medals for queuing but the way that family moved when they saw the doctor heading for his office I think you guys would have the sprinting events totally tied up.
Now as a foreign pair of eyes not only observing this strange state of affairs but also being caught up in it and trying to operate within the system I have to say that I find it illogical, confusing and also lacking in manners and bordering on rude. But I guess that is the way you guys do things and as they say, when in Rome. But I have to ask the nagging question of why. Why, when there is a much easier and simpler way that makes the experience easier to deal with and also is more polite for both patients and the doctor. So what is this way I hear you screaming at me well let me run you through a typical doctors visit back in the UK and you be the judge as to which way you prefer. So imagine with me if you will I’m sick (or poorly as my grandma would say) and I decide I need to pay a visit to the doctor. First of all, I would have to phone the doctor’s surgery and arrange an appointment. This can only be done over the phone and is I guess the first step in starting the process off of British orderly queuing. Now that I know the time of my appointment I head for the doctor's office and aim to arrive about five minutes before my allotted appointment time. On arrival, I book in with the receptionist who electronically lets the doctor know that I have arrived. The receptionist then informs me which waiting area I need to seat myself in. These correspond to the particular doctor to which I am about to see. I then sit there patiently waiting reading one of the many magazines that they have in the waiting room. Usually something bizarre like Woman’s Weekly or Boating Monthly. Now unlike here I now longer have to fuss and fret as to where I am in the queue because the doctor has all of this organised and I can sit and relax and read my Woman’s Weekly. He knows the time of each patient's allotted appointment and he knows the order of which he will see them in. So when the doctor finishes with a patient. The patient leaves his office and then the doctor types out on his computer notes about the last patient so that he has comprehensive notes about his last visit and his prescribed treatment. On completing his notes the doctor checks his computer list and walks out of his office and personally calls out the name of the patient next in the queue. On hearing your name called you simply put down the interesting magazine article you were half way through reading down and join the doctor and make small talk as you both walk back to his office together and wonder whathe other half of the article was about. How civilized, well at least apart from the bit where you miss the second half of the magazine article. So there you have it folks a trip to a British doctor. It would be interesting to know what you think but in my humble opinion it is a much less confusing system and one that is less stressful and even a bit politer. But who am I to judge. I have to say its not as exciting as shouting out across a room of sick and dying patients and there is definitely not that stressful buzz you get from constantly worrying that you will blink and miss your sprint to the doctor's office door, and that healthy buzz you get when you know you beat the little eighty-four year old lady to the door who has been constantly trying to sneak into the queue. But perhaps I’m just missing the point. Perhaps there is method in the madness and the harder you make it for sick people to visit the doctor the fewer people that go to see the doctor and so the queues may be confusing, but then again they are not as long as they would be if it was made easier. Must go, I’m off to see the doctor again! It’s going to be a long six hours! Must learn the Polish for am I next.
And now check what you remember from the text:)
