To my last patient that wouldn’t get off the phone,
Hey, thanks for checking in at the front desk ten minutes late for your appointment. I needed that slowdown in my schedule so that I could stand here at the door and watch your world come dramatically crashing down around your shoulders. Yes, that’s what you made it seem like would happen if you didn’t get to finish that cell phone conversation.
The “I see you” hand signal and nodding of your head told me that your legs were ready to walk my way but that your brain still belonged to that employee yapping in your ear. She couldn’t figure out how to click on some stupid program? Please, I wanted you to fire her right then and for you to get your backside into my chair.
You teased me with an apology. I relaxed, thinking that the time crunch was relieved, draped a napkin over your shirt, put the chair in prone position, but then it was shattered by your obnoxious Justin Bieber ringtone yelling at me BABY BABY BABY NOOOOOOOO! I couldn’t believe that you had the nerve to put that phone right up to your ear and say “What.” You didn’t see me roll my eyes way back into the sockets and into the next operatory as I waited for you to finish moving your mouth so that I could get you to open wide.
Was I gentle to you today? Yes. Did I want to be mean with my dental equipment? I won’t tell you. Did you even see the signs posted all over this office that are written in big bold letters “NO CELL PHONES PLEASE”? Even when I pointed at one of them and glared at you in the nicest way possible, you STILL thought it would be okay to hold your phone up in the air and do a little texting. WHILE I WAS WORKING IN YOUR MOUTH.
Well that’s it. The signs are coming down because it’s always embarrassing when a courteous person will go out of their way to shut down their violating phone. Oxygen explosion? Equipment danger? Whatever. I’m not getting interrupted by the people who read signs. I’m getting interrupted by you, the rude person who probably also doesn’t stop talking on the phone in checkout lines.
So I won’t punish everyone with my threatening signs that just end up making me look intolerant. Next time, it’ll be all on you. If you’re on your phone, instead of wasting our time together, you will be asked to reschedule your appointment because you are just too occupied for the dental care that we are prepared to offer you.
Hello? The world is calling. It wants your attention back. 
So why is hearing only one side of a phone conversation so annoying? Here’s what scientists have to say about that. And if you’re clueless, pretend to take this quiz to find out if you are also guilty of abusing your cell phone.
I would have poked him a bit harder with my sickle scaler but that’s how I am.
So true!! Specially the trying to text while we have a rotary instrument in their mouth!!
I embrace the cell phone issue! I joke and say we are cell phone friendly.
I comment on their ringers and ask them if they need to get that.
If they need to text I tell them to go ahead and finish while I catch up
on charting, computer input or appointment scheduling.
I especially enjoy when they insist they “just have to get this call quick sorry”,
and then answer their phone and say, ” I have to get back to you, I am in the dental chair”. Then whoever is on the other end stumbles over themselves with apologies and quickly hangs up! Maybe they need a dentist and it will be an opportunity for a referral.
At least I can smile for a minute while I imagine the face of the person on the other end
when they hear where they just called. It often gives us as dental hygienists a chance to share in a bit of their life when they hang up and tell us what ever just occured that was so important that they had to steal some of my dental care appointment with them.
These are problems we did not have to deal with 20 years ago!
Sandi – you are inspiring for turning a negative into a positive. Just wow.
I am a mom as well as a dental hygienist, and my first instinct is to just say – if you can’t finish because the person wasted so much appointment time on the phone (or something else, I also find it very amusing when a person who arrived early waits until I come to get her to ask if it’s ok to use the washroom) then simply do as much as you can and re-schedule to finish. In the parenting world we would call this a ‘natural consequence.’ The person chose to spend appointment time on the phone, and now will have to take more time out of her busy schedule to return again.
That being said, we can’t charge for scaling time if the person is on the phone, so there is a loss of income issue.
Wow, oh wow, things are bad in the manners department these days!
About ten years ago, I was half way through surgically extracting a lower wisdom tooth. Phone rang, patient answered it and proceeded to have a really boring conversation. I was too stunned to do or say anything!