It’s infuriating! Once again you’re in your doctor’s waiting area, or sitting in the exam room with a gown of paper napkins covering your shivering flesh, waiting forty-five minutes after arriving on time to your appointment! What gives? Is your doctor in the break room playing Candy Crush for the third hour, or painting another yawn-worthy floral watercolor to hang in the lobby?
Actually, while this might appear to be a modern problem, we did a little exploring and discovered that patients have always had to wait on tardy doctors. A revisit of the Greek translation of the Hippocratic Oath from 275 A.D. reveals that the major points were “first, give no poison” and “take your time in arriving.” Here’s a brief history of what’s kept doctors unpunctual through the ages:
1600s
You might assume your physician is busy treating the masses for bubonic plague, or performing a blood transfusion between a healthy ox and your ill cousin, but in truth the reason you are waiting is because the doctor himself is waiting for his papyrus scrolls to dry. The papyrus is what he’ll write your script on, and have you take to the apothecary. You will also have a delay at the apothecary, due to the drying time of herbs like St. Michael’s Wart and slippery oak. Also, the apothecary spends most of his time testing new poisons for royalty to have on hand. Have fortitude; soon your boils may be gone.
1700s
Are your tights or corset in a bunch about the delay? Your doctor is late because he’s been toiling in his blacksmith shop, forging sharp but impressive instruments of torture and medical benefit. Soon your toothache will be cured with the removal of your spleen and right kneecap using the latest tools in surgical technology.
1800s
Does your good doctor hate you? You’ve been seated in this waiting room all afternoon! Well, relax, for he is only breeding his bloodthirsty leech colony that he’ll soon attach to your scalp to cure your melancholia.
1900s
Your physician apologizes for the delay, but he is consulting his encyclopedia of medicine and deciding if electric shock therapy, a little cocaine, or a brief strychnine regimen would best suit your anemia.
2000s
You can blame your wait on insurance companies and new privacy laws, but your doctor – even in these modern times! – still has to do everything herself and isn’t permitted to tell you anything about it. She’s probably in the back simultaneously lab testing fecal specimens while entertaining the sales efforts of a Big Pharma rep AND arguing about Google diagnoses with a patient on a “virtual visit” on her laptop! Just kidding, she’s totally tickling the leeches because they’re really cute. Maybe wait three minutes more, and then give up and register for the MasterClass “Dr. Oz Teaches You Medicine” because enough is enough.
