Did I choose you? Or did you choose me?

While being out here, I have worked with a total of 6 different doctors. It is great to be able to see the different ways that each practices medicine.

What I have come to notice is that eventually, patients and doctors match in personality and "style." For example, the doctor that I followed today has a reputation for getting extremely agitated if she gets behind even a few minutes. Also, even though she has 3 patient rooms, she only wants 2 filled at once because 3 makes her edgy. Interestingly, most of her patients are quick and to the point about why they are there. They get right down to talking about their symptoms, how they are feeling, and what they are worried about. All of this happens without the doctor seeming like she is pushy or trying to get her patients out of the door.

Another one of the doctors will listen to almost everything you have to talk about, even if it isn't the reason that you came in to see him in the first place. As you may have guessed, a lot of his patients talk a lot and he is usually running about 30-60 minutes behind schedule. That may sound frustrating to some of you (maybe you would work better with the other female doctor I mentioned...) but his patients know that when he finally gets to them, he will also give them all the time they need.

It goes on and on. So I guess that means that if someone recommends a doctor to you, you should ask that person more questions about how the practice goes. For example, if you really wanted a doctor that spent as much time with you as necessary and didn't mind being late, the person recommending the doctor to you would need to give you more details about how much time the doctor spends in the room with the patient.

My point is that how did the patients and doctor end up together? These types of things aren't really advertised anywhere but most of the patients seem to work well with the doctor's style.

At this point, I think I am leaning more towards the female doctor in this post. I wouldn't be exactly like her, I don't think I would flip out about 3 patient rooms being full. But I would like to keep things on schedule as much as possible.