Without consulting me, and without advance notice, my doctor of 40 years retired last month. His pitiful excuse—that he was about to celebrate his 88th birthday so maybe it was time—didn’t impress me. But it did leave me with the sudden awareness that I now had no doctor, and that I had better find one, because at my age, despite my athletic build and awe-inspiring physical condition, one never knows.

As a parting gesture, he gave me the names of three physicians he thought might be good for me—meaning, I assumed, that they would carry on his decades-long struggle to get me to lose weight, a contest in which I ultimately triumphed by simply outlasting him.

One of his recommendations turned out to be 80 years old. Heaven knows, I have nothing against 80-year-olds, but somehow it didn’t make sense to me to start fresh with someone that age, so I scratched him off my list. I began to check out the other two by asking some of my doctor friends for their opinions. I cared not only about the candidates’ medical skills, but also their attitude, personality, and warmth. I wanted the chemistry to be right, and I wanted to meet and visit with them, even briefly, in order to make that judgment.

My friends gave the two remaining doctors on my list good reviews, and, in fact, each gave me messages to deliver when I met them. Armed with that, I phoned the first one and said that I wanted to schedule an appointment. I was connected to a man, apparently the scheduler.

“I’d like to set up an appointment to meet Dr. W.” (forgive me, readers, but I won’t use his name here).

“Are you a patient?”

“No, I am not, but I’d like to see him, and, in fact, I have some messages for him.”

“He doesn’t take new patients.”

“I’m not asking to be a new patient. (I figured I’d worry about that later.) I just want to see him because I have messages from three of his friends, and I want to deliver them. I’ll be happy to pay for the appointment.”

“He doesn’t take new patients.”

“You know, I’m just not making myself clear. I’m not asking to become a new patient, but in the last few days I’ve been asked by three of Dr. W.’s colleagues, all of them physicians, to greet him and deliver messages when I see him, so I just want to be able to do that.”

“I told you, he doesn’t take new patients.”

If my arm had been hooked up to a blood pressure gauge at that moment, there would have been a loud explosion. “All right, then will you please just give him my name and this message and ask him to phone me whenever he has a chance?”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“You mean you won’t give him the message or that he won’t call me?”

No response. Turning crimson, I continued, “Well, I guess I’ll just call him at home. I have his number.”

“That would not be advisable.”

At this point, it was clear to me that I would never use this doctor, no matter how good he was, because of the awful, rude treatment from his staff. If that’s the way his office is run, if this is the arrogant slug I’d have to deal with in trying to set up future appointments, if the doctor himself is oblivious to the way his staff is treating people, or worse, if he’s aware and does nothing about it, he’s not for me.

Having made up my mind, I couldn’t resist a final bit of sarcasm. I said, “Well, could you just tell me what kind of car he drives. Maybe I’ll catch him in the parking lot.” He hung up.


By the way, do you know how your customers, vendors, and other visitors are treated in your office? Is your automated phone-answering program as helpful and user friendly as it can be? Have you ever tried using it? Have you ever phoned your company, anonymously, to see what kind of treatment you get? Is there maybe a lesson here?