Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Phone Etiquette



Lately, I've been thinking about how people who call doctors' offices can act strange on the phone. I've had/or my friends have had any of the following situations occur before:

1) Patient who wants an abortion ordering McDonalds while trying to schedule an appointment.
2) Patient screaming at her kid while trying to schedule an abortion (I always cringe whenever this happens).
3) Client's mother screaming at daughter (who needs/wants an abortion) because the daughter was so "stupid to get knocked up!" (Ugh. Also cringe-worthy.)
4) Patient's boyfriend who calls to "make sure she really had her abortion."
5) Patient's driver calling to pick up the patient after her abortion, but refusing to walk inside the clinic to get her.

If I could make a request of people: please don't call us and scream. Please don't scream at us, in our ear, at your child, at your mother, or at your partner when talking to us on the phone. Thanks!

I'm sure you've had crazy phone situations, too. Though sometimes I want to hang up - especially when yelling ensues - I am grateful that people are so different that they keep us on our toes.


1 comment:

  1. Just today I had a call throughout which there were at least three small children SCREAMING in the background. I had a headache when I hung up.

    Once I got a call from a mother trying to make an appointment for her daughter. It turned out the mother was driving, and her husband and daughter were also in the car, and I was on speakerphone. I can't think of a less practical way to make an appointment!

    ReplyDelete

This is not a debate forum -- there are hundreds of other sites for that. This is a safe space for abortion care providers and one that respects the full spectrum of reproductive choices; comments that are not in that spirit will either wind up in the spam filter or languish in the moderation queue.