On Thursday I posted a “placeholder” post just so that any of my tens of readers would know I was still alive and posting and not missing a day. Today as I write is Friday and this post will replace the placeholder from Thursday. Another post, for today Friday, in a bit.
So on Thursday I visited my regular doctor, i.e. my PCP, primary care physician, in downtown Oakland, at this relatively unprepossessing location on 16th Street, a few blocks from Oakland City Hall. Photo:
I visited my PCP, primary care physician, yesterday, for the first in almost exactly two years. My point in this post is not to discuss my condition or symptoms, but to describe the trip.
It’s struck me before how a 15 or 30 minute visit with your doctor can take 3 or 4 hours out of your day.
In this case the appointment was a 3:45pm. We — I and my partner, who came along because he supervises all my medical issues and is aware of issues about prescriptions and so on more than I am; I’ve deferred all that to him — left at 3pm. The clinic is on the ground floor of a modest office building a few blocks northwest of Oakland City Hall, on 16th street. Photo above. It’s not a great area, not a shining building like the hospitals I’ve been to in recent months, but not in a bad area.
Still, visiting involves parking in a parking structure a few blocks away (right near City Hall, as it happens), and walking three blocks. Allow time for that.
When we arrived — again, the first time in two years I’d been there, since before the pandemic lockdown — things had changed. The entrance door was locked, and we had to knock and wave at someone inside to come let us in. They asked questions about Covid symptoms, and took our temperatures, before letting us inside.
There were fewer waiting chairs than the last time I visited. And no one else waiting. Though a son and father came in a few minutes later.
As usual, it was 10 or 15 minutes past my appointment time before someone came to let us inside. As usual, they weigh me and sit me down to take my blood pressure. My blood pressure is always high at the doctor’s office. They took me in to an examination room to wait for the doctor–actually an NP, Douglas F, whom I’ve seen now for four or five years. We wait some more. The nurse brought in another blood pressure machine to check me again, and after some 10 or 15 minutes, it was down to my normal home reading.
Douglas F came in eventually, happy to see me, eager to catch up on my heart issues over the past two years (to which he’d been only a bystander, receiving reports, but not participating), and then to examine me about my current concern. I’d brought along a hardcopy list of all my current prescriptions — they’d all completely changed since those I was taking before the transplant. He spent a few minutes, less time than I’d expected actually, keying them into his computer. Then discussed and examined my current concern, and submitted a referral for a follow-up diagnosis. He spent nearly an hour with us — much longer than the 15 minutes allocation for the appointment I’d seen on the schedule.
And then we walked back to the parking garage, now almost closing, and drove home, through the hills of Piedmont to avoid traffic on the 580 or 24, and got back around 5:30pm. (About the time I normally finished my post here, and when dinner prep beings and TV news comes on.)
And so, despite my premise, the ratio of visit time to overall trip time was relatively efficient — almost an hour of doctor time, for 2 1/2 trip time from home and back. And so, in an era when everyone complains about health care, in this case I have only minor complaints. (Mainly that it took 3 weeks to get the appointment, from when I called.)
Will WordPress let me post a post dated in the past?.. Yes, apparently.
