Jack Bauer made the line “There’s no time.” famous. Of course, he’s a fictional character. At least I think he is. But what about real life? It seems that many people complain about how much time their physician doesn’t seem to have for them these days.

My question is how much time do you want to spend with your doctor? I recently heard a patient on-line brag that her physician spent a whole hour with her on their first office visit. Really? An hour?

I rarely get to spend an hour with my wife let alone a patient. I do take my patient visits seriously. I want to meet the needs of each and every patient. But to be honest, I can rarely spend an hour with anybody unless there’s lunch being served.

And, I am not a Psychologist, although sometimes I play one in the office. Maybe I have ADD or something but by the time I get to 20 minutes, I have usually lost contact with what’s going on.

I would rather develope the physician-patient relationship like we do all other relationships, over time. So I will continue to show my true interest in each patient by actually making eye contact rather than staring at the new computer screens now mandated by the federal government, by listening to patient concerns, and rescheduling patients for routine care as I get to know them on a more personal level.