BMJ  2007;335:210-211 (28 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39282.619641.4E

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Liste d'attente? Pourquoi?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Doctor, when can I have my operation?"

"Well, my dear, in a few weeks I suppose." I was learning fast.

I walked into my first UK consultant job from a similar job in France 13 years ago. At first my patients were easy to please, because there was no waiting list in my orthopaedic firm. But I can take no credit for this, because mine was a newly created job, and at first I had to steal patients from colleagues to have something to do. Otherwise, however, waiting lists were omnipresent and, apparently, an unavoidable fact of life. Still, how unavoidable could they be? I had had no waiting list in France. In fact I had to translate from English to explain to my French wife what it meant: "Liste d'attente." She knew you could get stuck on a liste d'attente while desperately trying to reach a representative of the . . . [Full text of this article]

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