...as a client.
1. It mildly behooves you to know someone who is affiliated with the hospital. This person can provide you with many useful tidbits. For example, at this hospital general practice appointments are given individual time slots, and seen almost immediately on time.
On the other hand, ophtho appointments are usually overbooked to the max. This means the folks with early appointment times are in and out in a reasonable time span, but by 11 am the clients have piled up like tweens at a Justin Bieber concert and you miiiiight be out by 2. Maybe.
2. IF YOU ARE AT A TEACHING HOSPITAL, STUDENTS WILL TOUCH YOUR PET.
This is a basic truth that should be accepted, metabolized, and moved on from as quickly as possible.
3. You will probably not see the same doctor at each appointment. You may actually see multiple doctors in a day, and then see a whole new set the next time. This is because service chiefs, interns and residents rotate on and off services weekly, and there are hordes of them.
4. You will probably wait for a very long time. You might be here the whole day. Many services see all appointments in the morning, and then do all procedures in the afternoon.
5. If you leave your pet's collar/blanket/jacket with us when he or she is admitted to the hospital, it has an approximately 98% chance of being lost in the bowels of the hospital laundry system. Do not be a dick to your doctor when this happens.
6. The student assigned to your pet's case probably spends the most time out of anyone caring for and thinking about your pet. Here, each service student has perhaps 1-3 patients. Each service resident has 6-20 patients. Each service chief has 15-ALL the patients.
Here, the student does the morning and evening treatments, calls you (the owner) twice a day, updates the resident with changes in your pet's condition, and updates the medical record with findings from the resident's exams. They are the person hand feeding your dog, sneaking chicken from the cafeteria to tempt a picky eater, and saying yes, maybe an antiemetic would be a good idea.
7. It is uncool to wander around the hospital.
8. It is also uncool to ask your student or doctor to tell you about other people's pets. That is not legal.
9. The birthdate listed in the medical record is only there to give us the year of birth. I've met several clients who find it deeply offensive that our records do not always reflect an accurate day/month of birth. Why is this, you may ask? If you don't provide a specific birthday when you fill out your paperwork (just a year), we...make one up! Yaaaaaaaaay!
10. If it's June or July and your doctor looks like they are shitting a brick, they probably are. They maaaaay have just started their current job yesterday. They know things. They are good doctors. Be nice.