Clinic physicians: where do you park?

Outpatient physicians, where do you park at your clinic? Do you have reserved parking?

I work in the suburbs and our office has a pretty massive parking lot. 4 days a week, parking is not an issue. A different floor of our building has a rotating subspecialty clinic, and one day of the week parking is always a nightmare. Every week on that day, I’ll have patients complain that they drove around the lot 4 times before finally finding a spot. On the rare occasion I leave to get l lunch on that day, I always have trouble finding a spot when I get back. It doesn’t really bother me, and if a patient is a little late to their appointment because of parking, I’ll give them some grace.

Apparently the administrators have been grumbling that it’s unfair that the doctors are parking “too close” and we should be parking further away because we should leave all the even remotely close spots for the patients. All of my primary care colleagues park in the same area as me, not directly near the front doors but not too far away either. I have heard our clinic manager make snarky comments about it and I just kind of rolled my eyes and didn’t worry about it.

A few days ago we got an email sent out to all primary care physicians and staff asking for 12 volunteers to start parking in the parking lot of the rehab building next door. She said that if she didn’t get enough volunteers she would have to assign people. I’m fairly certain the people assigned are going to be the doctors based on her past comments indicating she thinks we are being selfish by not parking a mile away.

Here’s my issue. I’m usually one of the first people there at 7 am and one of the last to leave around 6. I’m a female. Our parking lot is really dark. It would be a several minute walk. It’s not an unsafe area per se, but I would not particularly feel safe making that trek alone at night or when it’s dark in the mornings. If I get asked to park there, I’m going to tell her this, but I’m just wanting some perspective here. Am I being completely unreasonable by thinking that I should be able to park in the same lot as my patients do? I mean, I spend longer hours in that building than almost anyone else. I’ve seen plenty of clinics that have special reserved parking for doctors (literally the opposite of what they’re trying to do). Also, it’s clearly not our primary care office that’s causing the parking issues, it’s whatever Tuesday specialist is seeing 50 patients a day (but of course they aren’t the ones getting asked to park in BFE.) Please help me get some perspective on my first world parking lot problems. Thanks!