Dan,
You're certainly welcome. We're all in this together. My goal is to help you guys state your case for what you need to get your jobs done and to help you understand why things are the way they are. We are, of course, ignoring one serious elephant in the room but I'll get to that in a bit.
For what it's worth, I could not make my living as a doctor. I can barely handle my boss calling me at 10am, giving me some 2 minute description of a report he needs, and then telling me to have it ready by 2pm because he's on his way to the client's office now and 2pm is about when he should arrive. There is no way I could tolerate an athlete or ballerina with a hurt toe or sprained ankle coming in and telling me they need it fixed by tomorrow's competition/event (assuming I was a podiatrist).
JamesNT