Doctors

It's doctor season for me. I have been dreading it for a month now, because I knew that as soon as September came I would need to start making my annual pilgrimages to the various specialists and general practitioners who make up my "health care team" as they like to call themselves. So far I've been to the optomitrist for updated glasses and a glaucoma test and to the dentist to have the plaque scraped off my teeth. Tomorrow I'll head west for blood work so I can have my annual check-up with my general practitioner. Then it will be the gynocologist for Pap smear, mammogram, and bone scan, and then to the gastroenterologist for my follow-up endoscopy.....and the sad thing is that this is only the beginning! If I am lucky enough to live a nice long life it will only get worse and I'll will need to spend more and more time in waiting rooms and on examining tables. Yuck.

From a pretty early age we learn that the things that are good for us are not always pleasant, from taking medicine to eating the right foods - but once middle age sets in it really gets rediculous. I remind myself how lucky we are to have the kinds of interventions and screenings that would indoubtedly have extended my grandparents lives had they been available 40 years ago. I know we are the recipients of the results of wonderful research and discovery. And I truly like all my doctors, I really do! Yet the idea of spending 30 minutes (or more) cooling my heels in the waiting room of a doctor's office still makes me annoyed.

Maybe we need more research on how to make the doctor's scheduling more efficient. And then how to make the tests themselves, and the hospitals and their staffs who administer them, less intimidating and more "patient friendly".

A good start would be improving those silly hospital gowns...