I am in a constant state of amazement at the contrast between what doctors make as a gross annual salary and what they chose to entertain their patients with in their waiting rooms. It seems to me that if I were asking people to come to my office and pay me a fortune and wait forever in a "waiting pen", I'd be bending over backwards to delight their every need and satisfy their every whim. I'd be so much happier about going to the gynecologist if my appointment started with a massage and appetizers in the waiting room.
I took my 3 children to the pediatrician the other day. I was excited because he had just moved to a new office with several other pediatricians. Judging from the first class exterior of the new office complex, I figured this was going to be a mini-Disneyland vacation for us. We walked into the enormous waiting room with the great big fish tank and sat down, waiting for the entertainment to start. Hmm...there was the enormous dirty salt water fish tank with 3 miniscule clown fish hiding in the artificial reef, the broken Sesame Street pop-up toy from 1974, one miniature hot pink bean bag chair, a train table without a single train piece, and the free magazines doctor's receive one copy of that sit in the waiting room forever. OK, so maybe the massage and appetizers are pushing the envelope but would a few new toys and an updated copy of People magazine be asking too much? I have always believed that good health was 50% physical and 50% mental. How much healthier would I be if I could read updated issues of current magazines and play with a few stimulating toys? Then again, if they kept me healthy, who would be paying for those huge gross annual salaries??
4 comments:
My doctor's office has yours beat--there is nothing whatsoever to read. Not even an ancient Field and Stream from 1974! They seem to take delight in absolute sparseness. If I don't remember to take a book with me I am reduced to reading the paper with my insurance info and all the codes for different tests etc that they hand me to give to the doctor. I am a compulsive reader for Pete's sake! How boring is that?
Oh can I say... *laughing*
My peds office, has one TV with a VCR that has a lock on it, that I have never ever seen turned on. Since I go there every stinking week, and have done for the last 11 months, I feel like I am pretty fair in saying.. it is probalby a card board box that LOOKS.. like a TV. My other favorite thing about my Peds office is..there is an area for sick kids that has a few toys, and an area for well kids that has NOTHING. Sooo all the well kids, will go "play" with the toys ( the NICU has made me germ a phobic) that the sick kids are playing with.
On a side note... Everytime I see my children's orthadontist's home I am convinced I pay his morgage. *chuckle* Or when I see him riding his ten thousand dollar mountain bike past my house I have this incredible urge to huck a water balloon at him!
I'm SO down with the massages and appatizers...no really, I think you've got something there...
I recently sat in a very nice waiting room, where the assortment of magazines included a pristine "mint condition" copy of an arts and crafts magazine from 1976: the year I was born! It had directions and patterns for making crocheted potholders with fruit on them, and an artical about an avante-garde artist who made all of his clothes out of bottle caps. I have never found a periodical to be more entertaining. Seriously. And I just kept wondering, "How did it GET here?" I actually considered asking the receptionist if I could keep it.
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