Bad booking protocol

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 68, No. 8, October 2026 | Page 272 | Letters | doi.org/10.66794/2c76
By: Ben R. Wilkinson, MBBS, FRCSC, MBA

As a physician who is also a patient, I feel a responsibility to draw attention to what I perceive as bad protocols or habits by physicians. On this occasion, I am speaking out against a common booking protocol used by many specialists.

When a specialist receives an email referral from another physician, they respond to the email, but they do not contact the patient at that time. They contact the patient only weeks or months later, when an appointment becomes available. Meanwhile, the patient is left with no knowledge as to whether the referral went through and no idea of how long they will have to wait for their appointment. I find this protocol to be rude and insensitive of the patient’s needs.

The suggestion that the patient should contact the referring physician to find out how long they are expected to wait is unprofessional and inappropriate. So is the suggestion that the patient should phone the specialist to find out.

The appropriate protocol is for the office of the referred physician to contact the patient at the same time they contact the referring physician to tell the patient that the referral has been received and that an appointment will be made for them in however many weeks or months.

I recently discovered that some hospital departments are also following this booking protocol; from the perspective of a patient, this is a definite decline in service. Not knowing if your requested CT will be in a week or a year is very unsatisfactory.
—Ben R. Wilkinson, MBBS, FRCSC, MBA
Cedar

Read the Editorial Board’s response to this letter in “Re: Bad booking protocol.”

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Ben R. Wilkinson, MBBS, FRCSC, MBA. Bad booking protocol. BCMJ, Vol. 68, No. 8, October, 2026, Page(s) 272 - Letters.


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