Doctor visit nostalgia: the waiting room

I’m going to date myself for this post. Readers who grew up after the 1980s may find this crazy but this is how it was for me all through the 1970s and early part of the 80s when I was growing up. Those of you who grew up in that era and certainly before can relate.

My upbringing was pretty traditional. Born in the late 60s, my earliest memories started in the early 70s. But while the world around me was filled with long, unkempt hair, bell bottom jeans, and flowered t-shirts, I was always dressed in public like it was Sunday and that included going to the doctor.

The doctors waiting room for a child can be a place of fear, not knowing if a shot awaited you in the forthcoming exam room. Unlike today’s pediatric waiting rooms that look like daycare centers, my pediatricians waiting room was cold, sterile and uninviting. Brick interior walls circa 1950s, brown couches and arm chairs, a couple children’s magazines, outnumbered by Good Housekeeping and other mags for moms. And ashtrays abound. Yes, smoking in the waiting room at the doctor was A O.K.

There was no mu-zak to calm fears down. Just silence interrupted when the next patients name was called by the nurse who’d emerge from the closed door leading to the exam rooms.

For those of you who came of age then, what was your waiting room experience like?

I am going to date myself even more, by about ten years earlier and my first pediatrician's office was in his home. A doctor's office in his home was not unusual back then. It was a large Victorian home with plenty of rooms to spare. Since it was for just the one doctor there probably were only two exam rooms. The waiting room was the living room of the home with several commercial looking chairs placed about the room.

My second pediatrician was a more typical medical office with several doctors using the space. The waiting room was like any other waiting room one would see today.

I never had the fear and intimidation that the OP mentions but my mother always was with me for my doctor visits whether physical exams or sick visits and that was a comforting aspect of my visits.

There were two waiting areas, the first was a larger area of maybe 20 padded 'plastic leather' covered chairs and a few magazines, always things like national geographic, women's weekly and occasionally cosmopolitan. In the larger waiting room, there were also one or two children's books, always preschool or very early primary. All had seen better days, covers or pages ripped, sticky with unknown substances and wax crayon on children's books.

There was always a nervous expectant atmosphere in the doctors waiting room. The unwritten rule was that it was forbidden to talk and apart from one patient continuously coughing, the place was deathly quiet. As a child I enjoyed breaking that rule, often receiving a glare from my mother to sit down and behave.

We waited for most of the time in the larger waiting room and then your name was called, signaling for you to move to the smaller waiting section which was just four chairs in the corridor, outside the doctors room.

This area was where the tension really ramped up. You could hear the voices of the doctor, nurse and patient inside and often, crying children who had just been given an injection. There were no magazines or books and waiting outside here meant "be quiet or else" There was also very little sunlight and the corridor was dim.

Bizarrely, I do remember one framed picture on the wall. The same picture was there for years. It was a photo of a naked baby/ toddler, taken from behind. The baby had spots and there was the slogan "Are you sure this is measles doctor?" At the bottom of the picture.

These memories jogged my own. My childhood doctor was located on one of the older residential streets in town with large Victorian style homes. It was a mix of homes but about half the homes had been converted to doctors' offices, lawyer offices and an architect or two.

Entering the front door the doctors office the waiting room was to the left and just ahead of you were stairs just ahead of the front door that went up to my dentists office on the second floor.

The doctors waiting room was originally the parlor of the house with a fireplace flanked by windows. A variety of upholstered and wooden chairs and loveseats were backed up to the walls with a sprinkling of small tables for health pamphlets and magazines. The most striking item in the room was a large mounted Marlin (fish). A trophy of the doctors fishing vacations.

The waiting room was usually half full of adults, parents and kids of varying ages. It was mostly quiet with an occasional cough or sneeze. There would be sounds of a crying baby or child's shriek from the exam rooms at the back of the building. Occasionally you would hear the whizzing the the dentists drill from upstairs.

At the back of the room was a desk for the nurse who would check you in and call you when it was time to see the doctor. The tension in the room would heighten whenever patient returned through the waiting room to leave. Sometimes it was a parent and child with a tear-stained face and maybe rubbing there butt having received a shot. The people in the waiting room would pretend not to notice but often had slight smiles the the child went past and out the door. Who would be called next?

The seventies colors is what comes to mind. The darker dull orange and yellow vinyl covered chairs, and the small laminated wooden tables with chrome legs, the dark wood grain paneling on the walls.There was usually no one else in the waiting room. It would be my mom and myself, sometimes my older sister would come along. The clinic we went to was small the reception area and waiting room were combined. The receptionist sat at her desk behind a walk up window. The clinic had one doctor, his nurse and the receptionist. Not like today's clinic's with multiple doctors and staff and multiple people waiting to be seen. The nurse was always wearing a white uniform with her nurse's cap when she came out into the waiting room to tell us we could come back to the exam room.

My pediatrician’s office in the later 50s or early 60s was attached to his suburban house, with a separate entrance on the side to the lower level. There was a small waiting room; no magazines or books and one examination room. The office was never crowded with sick children because in those days doctors made house calls, so if you were sick, the doctor visited you with his black medical bag filled with his necessities.

I’m going to date myself for this post. Readers who grew up after the 1980s may find this crazy but this is how it was for me all through the 1970s and early part of the 80s when I was growing up. Those of you who grew up in that era and certainly before can relate.

My upbringing was pretty traditional. Born in the late 60s, my earliest memories started in the early 70s. But while the world around me was filled with long, unkempt hair, bell bottom jeans, and flowered t-shirts, I was always dressed in public like it was Sunday and that included going to the doctor.

The doctors waiting room for a child can be a place of fear, not knowing if a shot awaited you in the forthcoming exam room. Unlike today’s pediatric waiting rooms that look like daycare centers, my pediatricians waiting room was cold, sterile and uninviting. Brick interior walls circa 1950s, brown couches and arm chairs, a couple children’s magazines, outnumbered by Good Housekeeping and other mags for moms. And ashtrays abound. Yes, smoking in the waiting room at the doctor was A O.K.

There was no mu-zak to calm fears down. Just silence interrupted when the next patients name was called by the nurse who’d emerge from the closed door leading to the exam rooms.

For those of you who came of age then, what was your waiting room experience like?

Ha! When I tell younger people that there were ashtrays in the waiting room when I was a kid, they think I must have come from another planet. But always in the waiting rooms and I even remember one doctor who chain smoked and would be in and out of the room for puffs.

I was usually with one of my parents, and the only time that I was nervous, was at the school year checkup, which included an occasional vaccine. My pediatrician was a great person, who had his office in his home. No rectal temps., or blood drawn. If he needed to check blood, it was a pinprick on the finger. My previous pediatrician was not so pleasant, which is why my parents switched doctors. His nurse was very strict. Any attempt to speak with the thermometer in your mouth, and she would threaten to put it in your “backside.”

One doctor told my Father that he would be better off smoking as it would calm his blood pressure. No surprise that he was also a chain smoker.

Does anyone remember those ads for Winston cigarettes that had doctor prescribed in the headline?

In the 1960's my primary care doctor was a cardiologist because I had high blood pressure from my teen years. We were both pipe smokers and he said the relaxing effect was medically positive. Of course at that time a doctor could smoke while working and I could smoke in college classes.