Please be patient

The word "patient,'' derived from the Latin word "patiens,'' means "one who suffers,'' according to an extensive piece of research I did today (Wikipedia via Google.)

The suffering is supposed to be mainly from mishaps and diseases, but sometimes anyone who is a "patient'' has to wonder whether their patience is being tested by waiting in doctors' waiting rooms.

This come to mind because of course I have seen a lot of doctors and had lots of procedures done over the last three and a half months and have been kept waiting a fair amount.

Out trip to Boston this week took the cake, with one doc keeping us waiting for more than two hours and another for an additional half-hour.

To their credit, they were both apologetic and explained that what had happened was basically beyond their control.

What they described in part was some screw-ups that anyone who has worked for a large organization, or had dealings with one, could identify with. Misunderstandings. People not doing what they said they would, or not doing it in a timely manner. Mistrust between people who don't know each other.

I guess the sobering part is medicine seems to have the same flaws as the two other industries I'm most familiar with, journalism and government.

As one of my daughters reminded me this week, the worst thing I could do as a journalist was ruin someone's reputation or damage the credibility of a newspaper. Both really bad things, but not on the same level as leaving a scalpel in somebody's intestine.

My experience has made me glad that before I get chemo, two nurses have to listen to me recite my name and date of birth and make sure it matches the label on the medicine.

And even more basically, it makes me glad that when I had my hips replaced, the docs put a full-length stocking on the non-operated leg so that in order to cut into the wrong one, he would have had to unroll the entire stocking.

That would have been hard to do - I hope.