Monday, September 12, 2011

"Patience - a minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue"

The above quote by American writer/editor Ambrose Bierce is very appropriate. The idea for this post came about by a status update I saw on a friend's facebook account. She was lamenting out loud that she has been waiting 3 hours at her OB-GYN clinic for her turn to be examined. I know and truly understand how she feels. Except in her case, she is already with child while me well you all know by now my struggles.

The thing with these type of doctors is they are always late! Even though their clinic hours are clearly pasted on the wall with big bold signs. Normal excuse would be that they would be doing their rounds first before they show up at their clinics. But I notice that the main culprit is proper time management. Some doctors have too many clinics in different places which they attend to in one single day. So imagine with the terrible traffic situation in this country, how can they bridge the distance between let's say Quezon City and San Juan in a span of 30 minutes? That is quite and utterly impossible unless they literally fly.

I also hate it when they tell you to show up at a certain time then you STILL have to wait since there were patients ahead of you. I had a very unpleasant experience last month with my new doctor. She told me to go to her clinic around 4:30pm so that she could be the one to perform the ultrasound. Her reason - by that time she would have less patients since she doesn't accept anyone after 4pm. So I get there by 4:20pm and what do you know? She had like 4 patients ahead of me who were still waiting for their consultation. By the time, it was my turn it was already 6:15pm and the ultrasound room was already closed (by 5pm). My stress factor was at an ultimate high. I was already very tired. I was very hungry. I was very worried because my aged parents accompanied me. My dad had a very difficult time driving us home because it was already night time.

That was truly a stressful experience for me. So much so that this month I've lost any enthusiasm to pursue another rounds of injections, blood tests and ultrasounds. I figure it has a lot to do with my doctor's attitude and professional behavior. Add to that my anguished disappointment that despite all of those procedures last month I am still unsuccessful. I am sort of in a limbo now. I know the best solution is to find a new doctor. But the real question is do I still want to go through all of these procedures again? At the back of my head, the 'NO' votes seem to be slowly winning this impromptu survey. Blah!

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