Have you ever had an appointment at a certain time, but got called into the room much later than you thought? As I’m sure many people have, that recently happened to me. I had a doctor’s appointment about a week ago, and I had it set at 11:45 a.m. since I needed to get back to campus by 3:00 p.m. that same day to run errands and finish my homework for the following day. I arrived at the doctor’s office at around 11:30 a.m., so that I would have time to check in and fill out any necessary paper work that was needed of me.

Normally, appointments aren’t right on the dot as punctual as they should be. There were times where I had gone to either the dentist or doctor and got called in about five minutes later than I should have, which isn’t a big deal at all.

However, the day that my appointment was scheduled for 11:45 a.m., I was stuck in the waiting room until about 12:45, when I finally got called into the room by the nurse. She was very apologetic and kind, and assured me that the doctor would be in shortly since he was near to done with his current patient. He finally came into the room about a half hour later (around 1:15 p.m.).

Now, I understand if there are emergencies that doctors must tend to before me, such as someone who cracked their head open, got into a car accident, is having a heart attack or broke one of their bones. If emergencies are the case as to why I’m waiting over an hour for the doctor to finally reach the room I’m in, then I won’t even question it, since that’s much more important. But that’s the thing.

The doctor’s office that I went to in Upstate New York wasn’t meant for emergencies—rather meant for people who need vaccines, have a standard cold/flu or have rashes such as eczema, coxsackie and so on.

Though the doctor diagnosed me, prescribed antibiotics and was very down to Earth, it doesn’t change the fact that it was nearly 2:00 p.m. by the time I had gotten out of the doctor’s office, and I live about an hour away from campus, and I had to be back within the next hour or so. Because I was so short on time, I had no time to pick my prescription up at my local pharmacy, which I needed in order to rid my body of the bacteria that was causing me to feel ill.

So, I had to make another trip back home over the weekend just to pick up my antibiotics that I was planning on picking up after my doctor’s appointment last Wednesday.

Excluding emergency appointments, I feel as if there should be a more efficient system to get patients/customers into their appointment (dentist, doctor, hair and so on) within a designated time-frame of 10 minutes or less. That way, you’ll be able to set a schedule of events without trying to rush the doctor, and you won’t continuously have to ask the nurses how much longer it’ll be before you get called into the room.

But most of all, you won’t feel the need to walk out when the doctor is taking a lot longer than he should be, and you’ll both be happy that the appointment went by in a timely yet productive manner.