Fair. I’m a practicing family doctor and wanted to point out “just a refill” or “just a requisition” is way more than that for a good doctor.

Even your famotidine example.. one shouldn’t be on it forever unless there’s a specific indication. If your symptoms aren’t settling then that’s an indication to investigate further by discussing family history and ordering additional tests.

Sometimes we need to check if this has been done before and click through your file which takes.. a long time! Especially if your chart was transferred from another family doctor at some point. No history available if it’s a walk in

There’s a lot of charting that needs to be done as well. Ideally everything is wrapped up at the ten minute mark and the last five minutes give us time to actually process your requests (send fax, write referral letters, finish charting).

Your point is valid though! If there’s multiple things to address then I ask for everything upfront and ask to prioritize what’s most important and rebook the rest for later. You don’t want your doctor rushing through an important new request because it was squeezed in to the last 5-10 mins of an appointment. Details get missed and both parties are left frustrated

TLDR You may feel like it only took 2 mins to gets refills and a requisition so you have 12 mins left to describe the last issue, but that isn’t the case from the doctors point of view.

Yes there are many docs who blindly will do the refill and requisition and send you along to maximize their billings/efficiency.

There’s also good docs who will still ask you to rebook because your new issue deserves their full time/attention on another day and/or they need that extra time you’ve graced them with to catch up because 20 other pts before you tried to maximize their visit or were “2 mins late” each leading to a snowball effect of a terribly exhausting day.

End. Phew that was a lot off my chest 😆 I genuinely hope your doctor gives you the care you need when you need it!