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Thursday, October 6, 2011

If I become a physician

Today I had to take Tubes to the doctor. He had been running a fever for the last 2.5 days and his cough seemed worse and I reached that point where it would not longer be over-reacting to take him.

But that's not the point of this post (he's fine by the way - just a virus that seems to be on its way out). The point is that I realized today how important it will be to have a great receptionist if I ever become a doctor. I dealt with two of them today and had a complete 180 in terms of my experience.

The first was with my family doctor. I called as soon as his office opened to see if they could squeeze me in. The receptionist told me that unfortunately they couldn't because except for a couple hours in the morning, the doctor would be away at a conference the rest of the day. She was polite, apologetic and suggested alternatives.

The second was at the clinic I was forced to go to as a result. I had never been there before and as soon as I walked in I knew by the look on the receptionist's face that she clearly did not want to be there and did not want to talk to me. After walking up and saying hello I was interrupted by the receptionist with "Have you been here before?" and just I finished saying "N-", I was interrupted again with "Health card." So I meekly handed it over. While she started typing away, I bravely dared to ask, in my meekest voice possible, "So how long will the wait be, approximately?" She looked up at me, as if I'd just asked her the stupidest question on earth and replied with "He just got here." Ok, so that means....what, that it will be fast because we're one of the only patients? Or long because he's already seeing a bunch of patients?

Anyway, luckily the doctor was incredibly nice and efficient so it was worth the visit but I couldn't over the stark contrast of the two receptionists I dealt with today and vowed should I become a doctor, the first thing I'll do is hire an awesome receptionist.

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