“Med four, call radio please.”
Sigh. I hate when they want us to call on the radio.
We have radios. They are called ‘radio’ (or dispatch, depending where you are, whatever) for crying out loud. We have multiple channels that we can talk on, and they have the ability to contact us directly through our radios.
They can even send messages to us through our MDTs.
But they want us to call them on the phone. I hate talking on the phone.
And it’s never for anything important that couldn’t be handled some other way. It’s always crap like “hey, you guys have a call coming out soon,” or “do you have a phone number from that lady from that wreck six hours ago?” or “did you guys see a purse/license/keys/stuffed animal in the back of the truck? A patient from two days ago is missing it.”
- I don’t care. Just dispatch me when it’s time to go.
- What lady? No, I don’t have her number. It’s on the PCR.
- Yes, I found it, and I sold it on eBay.
I cannot stand talking to radio on the phone. Well, frankly, I don’t like talking to them on the radio either. Shaq and I came up with a new strategy:
“Medic four, can you call radio?”
“No, ma’am, we can’t. Neither one of us have a cellphone. But we can switch over to private.”