--- title: Waiting Room Magazines: Why Doctor's Office Magazines Are Always Old description: A new study in the BMJ found that people take new magazines out of the office leaving patients to flip through old ones. canonical: https://time.com/3633632/doctors-office-magazines/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-15T18:25:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T02:51:29.930Z article:section: Health og:title: Doctors' Offices Lose Millions To Magazine Theft, Study Says og:description: A new study in the BMJ found that people take new magazines out of the office leaving patients to flip through old ones. og:url: https://time.com/3633632/doctors-office-magazines/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd35ed0b9315b2f4/69876ecbe20a871e77a8403d/doctor-office-waiting-room.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Woman in waiting room of a medical practice og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Doctors' Offices Lose Millions To Magazine Theft, Study Says twitter:description: A new study in the BMJ found that people take new magazines out of the office leaving patients to flip through old ones. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd35ed0b9315b2f4/69876ecbe20a871e77a8403d/doctor-office-waiting-room.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Doctors' Offices Lose Millions To Magazine Theft, Study Says  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Dec 15, 2014 6:25 PM UTC  Woman in waiting room of a medical practice Woman in waiting room of a medical practiceGetty Images  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Dec 15, 2014 6:25 PM UTC It’s not just _your_ doc who’s behind the times: magazines in doctor’s offices really are old, and now a new [study](http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7262) in the _BMJ_ proves it. To test why waiting room mags are so outdated, the University of Auckland researchers equipped a waiting room with 87 magazines, both “gossipy” and news oriented, and tracked the rate at which they disappeared. Three out of five magazines that were published within the last two months were taken, compared with 29% of magazines older than two months. Over a month, an average of 1.3 magazines disappeared each day. The study also found that people take “gossipy magazines,” defined in this study as periodicals with more than five pictures of celebrities on the cover, over news magazines like TIME and _The Economist._ “Another follow-on study should be conducted to examine the effects on receptionists in a waiting room without gossipy magazines,” the study said. “Unfortunately we are not familiar with any clinic willing to participate in that research.” Researchers decided to take on the unusual topic of magazine disappearance after one of the authors received numerous complaints from patients about the age of his office’s magazines. They concluded that magazine disappearance is widespread and estimated that, at $5 a magazine, it could cost practices in the United Kingdom $19 million—a sum much better spent on healthcare, they add. While researchers adhered to established practices to conduct the study, they took a humorous tone in sharing their findings. “Future research in waiting room science would include identifying who or what is responsible for the removal of magazines,” the study said. “This could involve a yet to be developed ‘find my magazine’ smart phone application.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3633632/doctors-office-magazines/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3633632/doctors-office-magazines/"},"headline":"Doctors' Offices Lose Millions To Magazine Theft, Study Says","datePublished":"2014-12-15T18:25:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:51:29.930Z","description":"Gossip mags are most likely to escape the waiting room","url":"https://time.com/3633632/doctors-office-magazines/","keywords":["Research","health","magazines"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd35ed0b9315b2f4/69876ecbe20a871e77a8403d/doctor-office-waiting-room.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd35ed0b9315b2f4/69876ecbe20a871e77a8403d/doctor-office-waiting-room.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Woman in waiting room of a medical practice","caption":"Woman in waiting room of a medical practice","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3633632/doctors-office-magazines/","name":"Doctors' Offices Lose Millions To Magazine Theft, Study Says"}}]}] ```