Amy's 'momentary trouble'

I have always held the belief that every High School student should be required to take a course in Customer Service. I find it absolutely appalling that a great share of people who decided to go into a service oriented profession have absolutely no idea how to treat a customer. Admittedly everyone has their breaking point and contrary to the commonly taught axiom, customers AREN'T always right. A person who has been properly schooled in the art (and yes, it is an art)of Customer Service knows how to 'dress down' a badly behaving customer in such a way that the customer leaves not only satisfied, but smiling as well.

Yesterday and today Amy and I experienced some interactions with medical staff at the UW Hospitals that sorely lacked not just basic Customer Service, but kindness, respect and proper protocol. If you can remember, a week ago Thursday, Amy had a stint put into her bile duct because her bile wasn't flowing, she was jaundiced and they didn't want to start her Chemo/Radiation treatments before this was cleared up. I remember asking the doctor at the time if Amy should have her blood checked daily to see if this was working, he said, 'No, she's flowing like a river, she'll be fine.' So, I took him at his word and took Amy home. On Sunday, she was back scratching again, so I pressed her to call the doctor first thing on Monday. On Monday, she called and informed the doctor that she was back itching again and he told her to go up to the local clinic and they'll run a blood test and he'd call her in the afternoon. He did as he promised and called her, but said that her Bilirubin levels were down and that she should be ok. Friday came around and Amy was itching worse than ever and by now she has scratched so badly that she has tiny scabs all over her body from scratching, so she calls the doctor and he tells her to go up and have another blood test done and that he'll call her back when he gets the results. When he called her back he said that the levels were indeed back up, that obviously the stint isn't working and that she could either 'tough it out' until Monday or come in tomorrow (Saturday) morning but either way, they are going to need to go back in and replace the stint. Amy, obviously not too happy about this told the doctor that she'd need to talk to me about it first; the doctor said fine, just call him back and we'd go from there. Amy and I chatted about it and even though she wasn't looking forward to doing this YET again, I convinced her that the sooner this is done, the sooner we can move forward. She calls the doctor back (this is probably around 2:00pm) and gets his nurse who is completely clueless and after Amy explains everything to her, tells Amy that she'll have the doctor return her call. We wait two hours and the doctor still hasn't returned Amy's call and it's getting close to the end of office hours, so Amy calls and asks me to call and find out what's going on. So, I call and talk to the receptionist and fill her in on what's happened and that we really need a call back from the doctor, she asks me where they can return my call and I give them my work number, thank her for her time and hang up. About ten minutes later, Amy calls me and she just got off the phone from the nurse where she once again had to explain everything. She got to a portion where she say something about already talking to the doctor about this, the nurse interrupted and said in a voice an octave higher than before, 'You've already talked to the doctor?' to which Amy replied, 'Yes, I've told you that before' and the nurse replies with something like, 'Well, I will page him right away.' They hang up and the doctor calls Amy within 15 min. It seems obvious to me that nurse didn't page the doctor the first time like she said she would. Now, maybe I was just a little too hard on her, after all I don't know if she was having a busy day or not, but I don't think it too difficult to ask the receptionist to place the page.
I am actually writing this from the UW Hospitals on Saturday morning where our ride on the Customer Service Carnival continues with our trip to the outpatient lab. Our nurse walks us down to the lab and goes to hand Amy's lab chart to someone and that someone tells our nurse, 'We don't open until 9:00' our nurse looks at her watch and replies 'Oh, you mean in like 5 minutes?' and they respond 'Yes.' So, we go back out to the empty waiting area to wait. 9:00 comes and goes and noone comes out to Amy. Other patients are starting to come in and they kind of wander around waiting and still noone comes out. At 9:12, with noone still coming out, a voice from back in the lab area tells one of the people just standing around, 'Well, come on back.' This happens 3 or 4 times before I say out loud for all to hear, 'Aren't they going to follow any process? Like go by the chart order?' I think one of the people who had been called back must have said something because a few minutes later, one of the nurses stuck her head out and asked for the person who was supposed to have surgery done at 10:00am...
Is it too much to ask that Service Professionals be more Service Centered & less Self Centered? I personally know that it can be daunting, after all I worked in restaurant/retail management for 12 years, but I also know with a little creativity, it can be a lot of fun!

...They have driving school for those who have received too many tickets, maybe they should have a remedial Customer Service school for those who need it as well.

This is Amy's story as seen and told by me - V