I don't want to make anyone feel bad.

Because that must be avoided, no matter what. Description of authentic personal experience aside.

If doctors are spending an average of seven minutes with each patient, are there so few patients like me getting decent amounts of time? Is that study general practitioners only, or does it include any sorts of specialists?

My doctor (general practitioner) spends a decent amount of time with me, although as I type this, I'm not actually sure it's more than 7 minutes. I guess it's more that he *does* listen to me and generally provides good care to me. Maybe that makes it *feel* like a longer amount of time.

I think the "seven minutes average per patient" is for doctors working in HMOs. Maybe only general practitioners, but I'd say, again based on my experience, not. But it's an average. It's not like there's a clock that starts when they walk in the room.

It's not like there's a clock that starts when they walk in the room.

I kind of want to check, now, though. Start the stopwatch on my phone or something.

t edit I'm not trying to be contrary or kerfuffle for the hell of it; I'm serious about wanting to time Awesome Doc, because I'm just curious.

My migraine and sleep doctors spend a fair amount of time with me--ten minutes or up. Pain doc sends in a felllow who might eat the seven minutes themselves, but he never clocks that much time. GP...he has a way of making you feel like you are the only person in the universe, plus he writes some of your stuff up before you leave, so you don't just make an appointment as you go, but you get a whole sheet of instructions including tests you need to take, written list of prescription changes--it's really useful for my sieve-like brain.

The evaluation I had with the new migraine doctor (the one I'm not seeing because he's not covered and he wants me to spend 3 weeks in Michigan) made me wonder how he normally operates. He dictated his notes with me in the room, which was a good way for me to get a summary of everything we'd discussed, but had a pretty weird vibe. He definitely went over seven minutes.

From googling the number seven, I saw un-cited claims of seven minute visits nd one article that said it was a target (and that was reprinted at least once).

Oh, hey, my depression lifted for like seven hours today! It was great to know what I could be feeling like! Now I want to either drink myself into a coma or go punch things that break. It's a good thing I don't have any friends around here. I might end up being a little annoying tonight. Of course, I've never really had any friends I could call at midnight in a weepy drunken angry self-pitying haze, so I don't actually know what I would do if I had some friends to annoy right now. I mean, it's not like I don't have any friends, but they have jobs and/or children and they live in different time zones, and it would be bad of me to call them at this hour just because I hate everything and I want someone to lie and tell me it'll be all right. So I'll post here instead and probably delete it as soon as I sober up.

I never feel rushed through my doctor visits. She asks me questions, looks over my records and asks good questions. I feel comfortable with the amount of time I spend in office visits with me as well as my kids.

What time zone are you in, Zen?

I have had a mixture, I have literally had a doctor walk out the door while still talking. She walked in, I told her I thought I had strep, she looked at my throat and said "Okay, I'll write a scrip for antibiotics and leave it at the front desk." and began to leave. I said "wait, don't you want to take a culture?" She was holding the door open with one foot in the hallway when she said "well, I will if you insist, but you do seem to have strep. have a good day!" and left. I wanted to get the culture to be difficult, but a) I was damn near positive that I had strep and b) it would probably take forever to get someone to come back.