Courtesy

I’ve had a couple of appointments with Doctors this week. Both were to decide what to do about my swollen left hand.

The first appointment was with my Primary Care Physician - the wonderful Dr. Kristin Paulus. The second was with a specialist in infectious diseases, with the thought that I might need more aggressive treatments for the infection which is causing the hand to swell. (That is yet to be determined).

In each case I arrived at the Doctors’ offices in good time. And in each case I was summoned to the examination room “on time”.

So far, so good. But again in each case I was greeted in the examination rooms by staff who did not identify themselves. I had no way of knowing who they were, and why they were taking my temperature and blood pressure.

I had to ask each of them who they were, and what they did!

Then in both cases I was left in the examination room with the words “The Doctor will be with you very soon”.


And in both cases I was left alone in those rooms for 30 minutes, expecting the Doctor “very soon”.

So I have two wee observations which have to do with courtesy.

First, when we are meeting a stranger, it is our job to identify ourselves.

Second, if we are likely to be more than 5 minutes late for an appointment, it’s kind to alert the other person, and to tell them why we are “running late”.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Shoe insults

The background, the couple, my friends, the wedding ceremony, the Shaykh, the Priest,

It began in Bristol U.K. "A man dies" and "Jesus Christ Superstar"