Oh Bert. You're right. Take care of yourself and your staff. You're killing yourselves and becoming bitter because of it. That doesn't help you or your patients.
I get a lot PCPs who call me and want to get a patient in the same day. I can do it sometimes and other times I can't but get them in the next office day. Why not triage a little better and tell the mom that you can get them in the next day if it's not super emergent (most are not or they really do need to go to the E.R.)
You're just going to have to set limits. Is it easy? No. We're self-sacrificing individuals. But your patients waiting an extra day will almost never harm them. Get them an appt in a day or two and tell them that if the patient gets worse, they are just going to have to go the E.R. unfortunately. There are so many hours in the day.
