[lsbskins1]

I work in a doctor's office where 3 hour waits are the rule and not the exception. The reasons for this are various. Our doctors are all specialists and surgeons. Sometimes, they have a surgery that takes longer than expected. Sometimes they get called into emergency surgery. Sometimes, they are on time and hitting the exam rooms and the guy who set up the appointment for a bum left knee figures "what the hell, why not discuss the shoulder that has been bothering me, too", and sometimes it is because that deposition with the attorney that was supposed to last an hour goes to 2 hours. But, in all honesty, it is equally because some friend of the doctor got "squeezed in" or because the doctor was on the phone talking about his upcoming trip to Paris. The causes are, as I said varried. But the most troublesome problem: demand. There really are not enough doctors in the world to meet the demand for service. We schedule at least 40 patients a day to see a given doctor and twice that many want to get in the office. Doctors have to constantly ballance the demand for more units of care against the need and ethical resonsibility to provide quality care.