Comments on: Waiting rooms

By: David Kellas

David Kellas — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:47:22 +0000

mary i agree

By: Mary Frances

Mary Frances — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:13:39 +0000

Your Ghana photo reminded me the time in 1982 when I volunteered for a couple weeks at a hospital in Haiti (my cousin, a Duke student who was barely older than me, was the interim administrator that summer), where the waiting room was the dirt yard outside, full of patients’ relatives squatting over cookfires — there were almost no nurses, and certainly no cook! Patients’ families fed and looked after their loved ones — just wanted to let you know we are ready to start the cookfires whenever you need!

By: Jamie

Jamie — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:10:48 +0000

Waiting rooms have become a symptom of the “bowling alone” phenomenon. Reality is the places we work and those on the ends of our fingertips.

On the drama idea, I think they would figure it out fairly fasit .. “What were you doing just before you got here?”. The real drama would be in what they did about it and would they like bloggers leap from the person they knew to the person to which they were now connected?

By: artcricket

artcricket — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:15:08 +0000

The waiting room at the imaging center I go to removed all the magazines due to GERMS! That is what they told me when I asked where all the magazines had gone. I won’t subscribe or buy People but look forward to a visit to the drs. to catch up on back issues – LOL! A great equalizer in the waiting room is just throwing a comment out like, “how ’bout that octo-mom” and you can have the whole place engaged.
All that fun is gone now — instead everyone is left ruminating about their situation.

By: Lois Grebowski

Lois Grebowski — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:30:56 +0000

I usually find a way to talk to people in waiting rooms. You get all sorts of stories and histories. Shoot, any line, waiting area, etc. I am always trying to converse…

Yep, that’s me, the social goofball!

By: RebelliousRenee

RebelliousRenee — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:12:14 +0000

Sean…
what brilliant insights…. it’s true, because of this medium, you and I can have a relationship of sorts…. but it does come with a price. Every choice we make means another choice is being ignored.

I did have an unusually good time in a hospital waiting room last fall. My mother was getting cataract surgery. I was driving her to and from the hospital…. it was around a 3hr wait. Most people were dropping their loved ones off and making plans to come back. However, I decided to stay and read. The waiting room had a card table off to one side with a partially made puzzle on it. I started to work on the puzzle. A few minutes into it another women came over to help me. Then another woman shortly after that. We decided to move the table more into the center of the room so it would be easier for us to work. We had a great time and talked… even exchanged names. Maybe that’s a solution…. more puzzles in waiting rooms.

My thoughts and prayers as always are with you.