Running behind in clinic has always bothered me.  When I was young and first interested in medicine, my father instilled in me the importance of punctuality.  “Patients don’t like to wait,” he told me, describing his unwavering motivation to stay on schedule in his optometry practice.  

In reality, none of us really like to wait.  Whether it’s in a waiting room at doctor’s office, in the car in traffic, or on hold on the phone, when we are waiting, there is something we would rather be doing.  In it’s essence, our frustration with waiting is all about time - our most precious and non-renewable resource.   Time spent waiting is time we will never get back, and while we can practice patience and understanding, neither can change this fact.

With this call to timeliness engrained in me, I was surprised to encounter some very different attitudes toward wait times when I began my ophthalmology residency.  They ranged from indifference to annoyance with patient complaints about wait times in our outpatient clinics, citing a myriad of excuses:

“We’re a tertiary care center - the patients are complex and take more than the usual time.  It’s not feasible to stay on schedule.”

“We’re a teaching hospital - things just take longer.”

“It’s worth the wait to receive care here.”

“That’s just how it goes in academic medicine.”

While these reasonings all seem to have some superficial merit, they each ask the same questions - is there a better way to deliver care more efficiently to be mindful of our patients’ time?  Moreover, would improving our efficiency allow us as physicians to retain more of our own time and be more productive?

In my first few years of attending practice as an academic ophthalmologist, I strove to be efficient - to stay on time for patients, myself, and my family.  Although I thought a strong work ethic and mindful intentions to remain punctual would keep me on schedule, I’ve found that optimizing clinic scheduling and workflow is not only equally as important, but a vital component of efficiency.

This blog will chronicle my experiences and the challenges I face as I work to improve my clinic workflow, highlighting time management lessons along the way.  I believe with an eye on efficiency, I can save time for everyone involved - after all, it’s all about time.

Thank you for following along,

-- EoEMD