Medical Appointment Log

Nobody else keeps this record

Each clinic keeps its own notes. Across a year and several departments, the only person holding the whole thread is you, and holding it in your head does not work.

The next-step column

Most appointments end with something that is supposed to happen — a referral, a test, a call back. That column is what lets you notice, six weeks later, that it did not.

Take it in with you

Reading last time's row before you go in is the difference between starting the conversation and restarting it.

What goes in each column

• Date — of the appointment itself.
• Clinician / clinic — a name if you have one, a department if you do not.
• Reason — why you went, in a few words.
• What was said — written in the car park afterwards, while it is still accurate.
• Next step — and who is supposed to do it. Chase from this column.

Printing it

Choose A4 or US Letter before you download and the table is laid out to fit that sheet — column widths are shares of the page, not fixed millimetres, so nothing is cut off at the right-hand edge. Alternate row shading can be turned off if you are photocopying in black and white, where a pale tint sometimes reproduces as a muddy grey. If you need more than one page, set the page count before downloading rather than printing the same PDF twice; the pages are then numbered, which matters the moment two of them get separated.