{"id":2345,"date":"2008-03-08T10:56:15","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T10:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2008\/03\/08\/magazine-etiquette-in-medicine\/"},"modified":"2008-03-08T10:56:15","modified_gmt":"2008-03-08T10:56:15","slug":"magazine-etiquette-in-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2008\/03\/08\/magazine-etiquette-in-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"Magazine Etiquette in Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Munger has been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

When it comes to waiting rooms, it turns out, eye doctors wipe the floor with everyone else’s ass. Not only does the eye doctor have the least shabby interior decor, it also arguably offers the best selection of reading material and visual entertainment (in the form of an infomercial for Lasik surgery on a 40-inch plasma TV mounted on the wall).<\/p>\n

Here at the allergist nearly all the magazines are of the complimentary local shoppers’ guide variety. We’ve got Charlotte Woman, the area Seniors guide, and a holistic medicine brochure. The other magazines aren’t much better: Better Homes and Gardens, and a copy of Medizine’s Healthy Living featuring Christina Applegate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The poor magazine selection in doctors’ offices is a staple of lazy stand-up routines, but it works because there’s some truth to it. Our GP and my allergist have the obligatory collection of six-month-old copies of Time<\/cite> and Sports Illustrated<\/cite> and The New Yorker<\/cite>. I’m ok with that, because it’s not like I read those anywhere else, but there is the occasional moment of irony, such as the NFL playoff preview issue of SI that had the Giants as one-and-done, with Tom Coughlin to be fired. That was an amusing read in late February.<\/p>\n

Of course, it could be a whole lot worse…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After the first-trimester screen test, we were referred to the “Women’s Health Center” of the local university hospital for genetic tests and other diagnostics, as we had been deemed a “high-risk” pregnancy. The waiting room there contains nothing that is not baby-related– piles and piles of copies of Conceive magazine<\/a>, plus a handful of other pregnancy magazines, and informative medical fliers about prenatal health issues.<\/p>\n

The first time there, I would’ve killed for a six-month-old Sports Illustrated<\/cite>. I would’ve liked to kill whoever chose the reading selection, but really, anybody with reading material that wasn’t taunting me would’ve been at risk. And we had at least managed to conceive– I can only imagine how irritating the reading selection must be to people there for fertility treatments. Sitting around for half an hour looking at glossy photographs or happy babies with an imperative title (it’s hard not to read that as “CONCEIVE!!!”) has to be positively soul-crushing.<\/p>\n

A tip for the doctors and future doctors reading this: People sitting in waiting rooms are not necessarily hugely enthusiastic about being reminded about their medical problems. I realize you probably get free promo copies of all this crap, making it the easiest possible way of decorating your waiting room, but if ever there was a space that demands escapist literature, your waiting room is it.<\/p>\n

So, for God’s sake, get some six-month-old copies of Time<\/cite> and Sports Illustrated<\/cite> and People<\/cite>. Your patients will be much happier. If you’re too cheap to pay for a subscription, steal them from Dave’s eye doctor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Munger has been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms: When it comes to waiting rooms, it turns out, eye doctors wipe the floor with everyone else’s ass. Not only does the eye doctor have the least shabby interior decor, it also arguably offers the best selection of reading material and visual entertainment… Continue reading Magazine Etiquette in Medicine<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicine","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}