Dr. Shanklin is a very good if you have the time to wait in the waiting room well past your scheduled appointment. For my first scheduled appointment, I waited almost an hour to see him. I assumed there must have been an emergency. For my second appointment, I waited only 45 minutes to see him. For my third appointment, I visibly witnessed him walk into the building 20 minutes after my scheduled appointment time. RUDE! After a total of 50 minutes, I rescheduled requesting his next available FIRST APPOINTMENT of the day. A month later, I called the day before my appointment to confirm and I asked if he was going to be on time. The response from the receptionists "I don't know". I explained my past experiences and that I needed to get back to work. She said "All I can tell you is that you have an appointment at 9:20". Wow.
So for my fourth and last appointment, I waited 25 minutes before I informed the receptionist that I was leaving and why I was leaving and informed her that I wouldn't be back. Her response as she was shutting the partition which she had opened about 4 inches after I had tapped on the glass was "okay". By the way, the Receptionists in Dr. Shanklin's office are as professional as an ATM machine, but with less warmth or concern for customer service. Which is odd because when you see them behind the glass they seem quite friendly as they are engrossed in conversation with one another. Sorry to bother you ladies!
All that being said, I believe that Dr. Shanklin is a good Psychiatrist. Based on my limited experience with him, he listened, he connected, he instilled confidence, and he seemed to really care about his craft and me as a patient. I was genuinely excited to work with him. (By the way, I am a nurse and I have worked in the healthcare field - including Psych services for 8 years, so I am quite familiar with the topic I am addressing). But just as I hired him to perform a service, I also had to fire him and I will have to hire someone else to perform the same service.
Just like Dr. Shanklin, most other people in the world work for a living, have family, obligations and all the other things that make up their life. And because people have unique and complex lives, they each have to carve out a little time from complexities of their life to go to scheduled appointments. Scheduled appointments are an agreement between two or more parties ensuring that each party is respectful of the other's time. Waiting a few minutes for a scheduled appointment from time to time should be expected and okay because we live in an imperfect world and life happens. But being outright inconsiderate of someone else's time is rude. My time and your time is just as important as Dr. Shanklin's time or anyone else's time! read more