OT: Dr. Utopia

[Guest guest]

Dear Dr. Utopia:

You have asked me to give you a few pointers on being The Perfect Doctor.

Here are my suggestions.

1. Dr. Utopia, please hire and retain people who are warmly polite to answer

your phones and work at your reception desk.

2. Please hire enough of them so that I am not kept on hold for 20 minutes

when I phone, nor brusquely treated when I enter your office.

3. Dr. Utopia, please set up your appointment book for twenty (20)-minute

appointments. Sometimes a person will not take the full 20 minutes, but most

people do. By accepting this as reality, you will avoid making me wait. Do

you know that I have waited for more than an hour after my appointment time?

4. Dr. Utopia, I do not think you are going to remember me out of all your

many patients. After all, you only see me once a year and talk to me on the

phone a few times more often than that. But, Dr. Utopia, please take a few

minutes before you see me for that annual exam to read my file and remind

yourself of me, my conditions, my diseases, my fears and medications and

hopes and attitudes.

5. Dr. Utopia, please set up a computerized system which automatically

subscribes to " med-line " and " health guide " type data bases and e-mail me

anything relevant. A new migraine med? An improved follow-up procedure for

breast cancer? A changed protocol for HRT? Flu shot availability?

There is an enormous amount of research and clinical information available

out there, and you, my health practitioner, could play a vital liaison role

between those data and me.

6. Dr. Utopia, please establish a regular system for telephone appointments.

I would like to be able to consult you by telephone and be charged for that

time. The way things stand now, if I have a question and call you, I'm in

voice mail. I'm on hold. I leave a message. You call me back with a few

minutes to talk to me, at the end of the day, when I am tired, you want to go

home, and I am usually not at my desk... Why?? Isn't that wasteful??

7. Dr. Utopia, please assume that I am intelligent and knowledgeable about my

own body unless you are convinced otherwise.

8. Dr. Utopia, thank you very much indeed for being a good listener.

Sincerely yours,

Klee

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