Over the last few years, I have accompanied Mum on a journey through waiting rooms. Hospitals, specialists, clinics and medical centres have become familiar places. I have sat beside her in countless rooms, watching people wait, contemplating time, looking at the positives of a liminal space and becoming aware that the waiting room is not simply a space between arriving and being seen.

It is a space of transition—a place where we leave the ordinary world behind and enter the role of patient or carer. At the reception desk we provide personal information, follow instructions and are told to take a seat. From there, our time is no longer entirely our own. We wait to be called, often without knowing how long the wait will be.

There is a particular vulnerability in this. We arrive with questions, concerns and uncertainty, and surrender a degree of control to the healthcare system. The arrangement of the room reinforces this: rows of chairs, reception desks, signs, screens and medical technologies quietly organise where we sit, how we move and what happens next.

Time feels different in these spaces. A few minutes can feel long, and an hour can seem suspended. The patient's time is held within an institutional schedule, while the individual has little control over its duration. Waiting can feel frustrating and powerless, particularly when the reason for being there is already difficult.

But waiting is not entirely passive. Sitting beside Mum, I have also noticed how much happens in these moments. There is time to observe, to think, to worry, to listen and sometimes simply to be together. The waiting room becomes a space of reflection as much as frustration.

Perhaps this is what makes the medical waiting room such a complex space. It is a place of uncertainty and vulnerability, but also of anticipation and possibility. It sits between everyday life and the clinical encounter, holding us temporarily in a state of “not yet”.

After spending so much time in these spaces with Mum, I have come to see the waiting room differently. It may appear that nothing is happening, but beneath the stillness, people are negotiating time, identity, anxiety, hope and power. The waiting room is not simply where we wait for healthcare. It is part of the healthcare experience itself.

Through this journey of waiting in a liminal space, so much of what you do with this time is up to you. At first I would sit in impatience, annoyance at the inefficiencies, now I sit in thankfulness for the free time to sit and be able to think, or enjoy a laugh with Mum, short moments that can carry you through the next step, and sometimes, on a lucky break in the emergency room, I even go and find the free sandwiches!