how does your department deal with cell phone ring tones?

[Richard B the EMT]

Expecting a Conference Call, Vorenus? LOL.

[DFIB]

And ..there was this one time .... at band camp ...

[jonas salk]

My ringtone is 'shipping up to boston', and typically speaking i never put it on silent. I've had a couple occasions where it's gone off while actively involved in patient care and when it does happen i typically just hit the silent button through my shirt.

I have answered the phone during a call before but it was for an overtime shift, I wasn't doing active patient care, just "monitoring" a CTAS 4 patient while enroute to the hospital. It may seem rude, but $60/hr is hard to turn down

As for the possibility of offending people, it's a fact of life. I'm not going to whip out my cell phone and have a ten minute conversation with my girlfriend while running a VSA or any type of call for that matter. In the case above the phone conversation lasted less than 45 seconds and it was a quick 'hey, i'm on a call.... ok i'll take the shift".

As for offending people, we recently had a patient file a complaint because while on offload delay one of the medics did a coffee run down to the cafeteria.

[Richard B the EMT]

As for offending people, we recently had a patient file a complaint because while on offload delay one of the medics did a coffee run down to the cafeteria.

Why, did the Paramedic forget to get a cup of coffee for the patient? LOL.