The Doctor's surgery waiting room

In the old days when you were unwell or sick you rang the doctor, and he came to your home. He was called the family doctor and everyone in the family used the same doctor. There was close bond between the family and this single doctor. He might prescribe medication or recommend specialist examination or a trip to the hospital. Medication required a prescription that he wrote out on the spot in handwriting. A trip to the chemist was required to get the medicine or pills.

Today that has all changed. If you feel unwell you must make a journey to the doctor’s surgery unless it is an emergency and then an ambulance will come and take charge.

A doctor’s surgery today is more like a small treatment centre with nurses, laboratories, and a host of specialist doctors. You have your own personal doctor that you choose and who remains your doctor over time.

To see the doctor you must first book online through the national health service. This requires passwords and security checks before you come your doctor’s calendar where you choose a free fifteen-minute slot. Yes, a fifteen-minute slot is the initial planned contact time that can change on circumstances. This is important as the schedule slips throughout the day. It is therefore wise to book a slot early in the day unless you are prepared to wait up until one hour after the planned time and pay extra parking fees for your car. So today, the responsibility is yours to get into the doctor’s surgery at your own costs. After that your national health plan should cover your requirements.

You enter the reception area where a notice informs you that if you already have an appointment, you can go directly and sit outside your doctor’s office. The problem is with reduced seating because of covid this is not as easy as it seems.

Once seated and your mobile is in vibration mode it is time t look around. After all a doctor’s waiting room is a window on humanity.

There is an anxious elderly couple opposite holding hands. Hope they get some good news. Next to me is a young mother with a sick baby who cries and cries and cries. We all smile and make gurgling sounds in an attempt to be friendly and perhaps a little helpful.

Down the waiting room is a worker with his hand covered in a bandage talking to a colleague in a foreign language, possibly Polish.

There is a quite different atmosphere here, it is palpable, people are anxious over concern for their wellbeing.

Suddenly a door opens a nurse shouts a name and waits for a response. No response so the door closes, and we subside into a state of anticipation, what next. The same door opens again, and another name is shouted down the corridor. Here, shouts a young women dressed in very fashionable clothes with a Gucci bag over her shoulder, and she disappears into the room and the door marked “laboratory” closes. What happens in the laboratory, I wonder? Five minutes later I have an answer. A man comes out in shirtsleeves clutching a plaster in his elbow crook. Blood tests is what happens in the laboratory.

It constantly amazes me what is learnt from an analysis of our blood. A few days after a blood test an email arrives with a cryptic comment from the doctor. ”All OK for your age”! This accompanied with a technical sheet with values for undecipherable symbols and the normal expected range for that condition. After a search on the Internet you learn what the symbols mean!

Technology is at the heart of our health system. You can login and check the status of medication and even renew it online. Messages from the doctor are there and expiry dates of current medication.

A trip to the chemists to pick up what the doctor has prescribed only needs you to show you ID foe the chemist to check what is available for you.

So much has changed but the doctor’s surgery remains that place you might fear most, perhaps after the dentist!