ER Wait...the Longer the Better

Hear me out. When you’re a patient checking in to the ER, you WANT to be the last patient seen by a doctor. Here’s why:

The ER is not a first-come-first-serve clinic. Nurses call patients up for initial assessment (triage) and assigning a room based on acuity, or severity of potential diagnosis...in franker terms, how worried they are about your symptoms pointing to an immediate life-or-death situation. That means even if you came in before someone else, if they go first, it means doctors & nurses are more worried about what’s going on with that person more than you (no offense). The #1 question is not how serious your medical problem is but whether or not it’s a fatal one. The further down you are on their priority list, the less likely it’s a life-or-death issue.

And you don’t want to have a life-or-death issue.

So if you come in with an injured toe, and you’re waiting an hour to see a doctor, don’t consider that a bad thing. Just breathe, because the guy who came in behind you may not be able to.