Doctor Worries
Doctor Worries
by Catherine Wyckoff
Doctor Themopolis looked out through his office door at the receptionist, taking in all the people. When it was this full, it caused him to be anxious. But he knew that at least half of them were either relatives or cousins or aunts of the people he was preparing to see.
He preferred young patents. They always seemed to be happy when they left his doctor’s office. He needed to devise a plan. That night he was meeting his friend, Doctor Parthan’s, to propose a proposition. Doctor Parthan’s partner had died several months ago and he saw this as an opportunity. If he could get the doctor into the neighboring building, he was set.
That night, sitting across from him at dinner, Themopolis and Parthans’s drank wine casually. “I’ve got a proposition for you, Parth,” said Doctor Themopolis. “I’ve got an empty building next to me. It’s technically mine, I just purchased it. I would love you to move your practice into that building. We could knock down a wall, put in a door in between, then I could send you some of my aged-outing clients.”
Doctor Parthan’s thought for a minute. “How many?”
“I roughly think about twenty. They’ve been with me for years. I know their parents would move over. I talked to one parent who left me recently. She said she left me because her new doctor could see both of her children at the same place. She didn’t have to jump from two different locations. The children said they hated the doctor. So, it sparked this idea. I’ll send you my patients, and you can send me the younger brothers or sisters of yours. We’ll have a glass door. It’ll be perfect. The parents can sit on either side, look through the glass door, and see their children on the other side, waiting patiently.
Parthan said questionary. “Together billing?”
“No,” said Themopolis to Parthans. “We wouldn’t have to bill together. And I’ll not even charge you crazy rent. Just a couple hundred dollars. And the first couple months free so we can test it all out.”
Parthan sat there and pondered. The rent for his place was getting kind of high now that he had to pay it all by himself. “How big is the space?” he said.
“Big enough for at least two client rooms and a decent-size waiting area. It would take a little while to finish construction if you were down for it.”
Themopolis watched Parthan as he pondered everything.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll give it a try. I’ve got to be out of my place at some point.”
The two shook hands and continued their dinner, planning out the new space in their minds.
All right! thought Themopolis. He had a way to keep his clients.
***
It had been several weeks since the construction had finished and it was the first day Parthan was seeing clients, testing out their new location. Several of Themopolis’s clients were open to trying Parthan. They were excited at the prospect of in the future having appointments for both children in the same location at the same time.
The color of the new office shined bright yellow, very different from the plain white walls in Themopolis’s office. He enjoyed the occasional look across the hall into Parthan’s office, brightening his mood. He couldn’t wait to see how things would go in the future.
They decided to each keep their own names instead of doing what Parthan had done in the past, creating a new partnership. They didn’t want to have to deal with that with taxes in the new year. But hopefully, sometime in the future it would be Themopolis and Parthan, Doctors.
It just depended on how long Parthan decided to stay. If all went well, things would look good into the next few years.
Themopolis looked out his door and smiled. They few clients he had the rest of the day were there. Mothers and their young sons, the older sons across the hall with Parthan. It gave him joy to know he’d solved his own problem and wouldn’t have to deal with an overcrowded waiting room.
He sighed with relief as he welcomed the next patient in. “How are you today, Thomas?” he said as he closed the door behind the five-year-old boy.
The End