I was lucky to find another doctor after my family GP of decades retired at 85. He wasn’t allowed to keep practicing after 85. He moved to an advisory role in another clinic giving up his practice. He wasn’t able to find someone to buy his single practitioner clinic. The real estate costs and the many services where patients are passed around is the new model listed as reasons he couldn’t sell it. I suspect since everything was still in paper records didn’t help.
The new GP is one of many doctors in the same clinic. He does mostly phone calls with some in person visits but usually it’s phones calls first and it’s 7 - 20 days before one can get an appointment. Anything urgent will need to be a drop in clinic which are full most of the time, or the ER worse case.
I have to wonder how much minor time sensitive cases are burdening the system overall. I ended up at a drop in clinic as the last appointment this summer due to an issue with bandages after a surgery. If this had failed it was the ER next for me as there was no way the GP could fit me within a week unlike the old days with my GP. Thankfully a adjustment to my bandages and cream solved my infection but it was still minor.
I don’t think there’s a easy fix coming soon anytime…
It seems to also be a switching task issue in our minds. These changes of states takes more effort than playing the next video does or just keeping on what we are doing. It’s so much easier for us to keep playing the digital dopamine slot machine that, TikTok, instagram reels, Facebook and YouTube short videos provide.
From a business sense they want to keep your attention, from a biology sense we are safe and don’t see a need to move with the random rewards another quick video offers.
It’s amazing how well they have refined getting and keeping our attention. We also get rewarded with dopamine from the anticipation of the next story or short video. It gets we don’t even really need the next video, just the anticipation is enough to reward us with more dopamine.
I’ve read doing a simple reverse mental countdown of 5-4-3-2-1 blast off helps us switch gears from another part of the brain. It can also help us get out of bed or off the couch.
I have an Asian buddy that rages over how bad Asian drivers are and even gives them the fingers pulling his eyes even more closed move while passing them. I don’t go anywhere in a car with him anymore… Come to think of it I rarely see him now…
I know a lady that has wired everything due to health concerns from wifi. She says she only accesses the internet via wires on her iPhone and iPad. I didn’t realize that was even an option.
That’s a great point. Often straight guys have lower standards and I was looking at it from that viewpoint. Women often complain most men see all of them as a potential sexual partner and I’m not sure if they are wrong in a lot of cases.
Still I wonder really there is no one in the whole city, province, or country that is a match? The smaller pool is something I should factor in though if I’m being fair.
In addition most of my relationships have been with people not originally from the area but neither am I.