I was spoiled without my knowing!

I guess I was spoiled? My last OBGYN was a GREAT Doctor (he had many levels of responsibility since he was on the board of Doctors for the hospital) and his office was on hospital property and I NEVER waited more than 15 or 20 minutes for him to arrive. He was my one and only ever regular doctor and he was punctual AND he respected the time of his patients. (He was direct and to the point once he arrived - which I also appreciated.) In addition, his nursing staff made you feel at home and if you had questions or problems they listened intently with true concern. I see now that I was spoiled. I was fooled into believing that this was regular treatment.

Fast forward to now. The last three years I've been going to this new guy and the only time he was punctual was on my first visit. Then on my second visit I thought... maybe it was an isolated incident that I waited 1.5 hours. The thing that was the MOST frustrating in this scenario was the lack of communication from the nurses. No one bothered to tell me that the doctor was delayed and when I pressed the call button they still were less than informative with the "he should be back any minute... sorry for the delay". I was LIVID!

Then this year I had a small issue and so I called the nurse. She abruptly dismissed me and said "if you have further problems then you should schedule an appointment". Feeling less than heard by the nurse I simply called to make an appointment. I arrive to find out although I am due my annual check-up they cannot do the normal visit stuff AND check on my other issue. Once again I waited 1.5 hours while I heard the friendly and laid back banter of the nurses and doctors in the hallway. They were in NO hurry. I now was determined that this was my final visit with these people. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!

The worst thing of all is that I needed to have a follow up visit today, although I now think the ultimate reason for my problem was stress. Had the nurse taken 5 minutes to ask a few benign questions... I would have figured that out withOUT the need for 2 sonograms. Cha-ching insurance company. So today I went for the follow up and the TRULY last visit with this doctor and had to wait 2 hours. I left without seeing the doctor. I know... births happen without planning, I know doctors are busy even if they are on-call. But if you are on call why not make that your surgery day. I never had to wait on my last doctor, unless an unexpected delivery occurred and that was clearly within 20 minutes time line because the birthing nurses called him when it was GO time.

Back to today, I was sitting in the waiting room (after being told I was next - the doctor just returned from surgery) and happened to move to another chair that had a better view of the hallway. The nurse who said he was back asked "has anyone told you the doctor had a delivery to attend to?" I said no and told her I needed to leave. She put a note for the doctor to call me and then she said "there are 2 other patients waiting ahead of you and I cannot guarantee he will not be interrupted again". I told her "THANK YOU SO MUCH for telling me! No one has EVER told me anything in regards to my wait before." I added "it does make the time more bearable when I KNOW I will be waiting an hour. If I cannot wait - I can make that choice for myself". She told me his nurse would have told me of the delay ANY minute; but my past experience has shown otherwise. She was being kind and for that I think even higher of her. And the thing that made this nurse all the more fabulous to me was her name was Ginger. It made me think of my online friend and that made me smile. So... thanks to Ginger I left without sitting another 30 minutes before asking for help. Ginger ROCKS! So I now see I was spoiled by my sweet doctor and I now know that not ALL doctors are so courteous. Thank you Dr. Andrus - you are forever my favorite doctor of all (favorite Doctor that I hated to visit - but miss so much).