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<\/a>By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAFP<\/strong><\/p>\n“To be, or not to be, that is the question:<\/strong><\/em> Yes, I have resorted to Hamlet in the “nunnery scene”; (one of the several Quartos of this soliloquy, and the most well-known)<\/p>\n He appeared to be deciding whether to avenge his father’s murder and rails against the unfairness of life as he contemplates the alternative<\/p>\n However, Doctor Curmudgeon\u00ae in her frustration, anger, and mild madness is wreaking her havoc upon those who text inappropriately<\/p>\n I insist on believing that if Prince Hamlet were with us today, he would have gone a tad freaky over people texting and being oblivious to him<\/p>\n Yes, dear Prince, life can be unfair but right now I am focused on texters…and I know the alternative to texting: it is not necessary for me to do much reflection:<\/p>\n SMASH THEIR PHONES!!!!!<\/p>\n Does this seem excessive? Not to me.<\/p>\n Let me speak to all of thou with my latest texting encounter:<\/p>\n As I was examining a young woman in my office, and had just placed stethoscope upon her chest, she reached over, grabbed her cell phone and began to text. Removing the tubes from my ears, I quite pleasantly said to her:<\/p>\n “Please stop texting.”<\/p>\n She had the graciousness to look up at me and smile.<\/p>\n Thinking my message had wended its way to her brain, I resumed my cardiac exam.<\/p>\n Again, she reached for her phone.<\/p>\n Again, I, almost as pleasantly, made the same request.<\/p>\n And, of course, she smiled and picked up that damnable phone.<\/p>\n Yanking the stethoscope from my ears, I screeched in full curmudgeon, “YOU ARE VERY RUDE.”<\/p>\n The offensive texter just stared at me in astonishment and shock. She was stunned to learn that her behavior was rude!<\/p>\n We have all experienced those who are texting and as we enter the room with a greeting, they quickly hold up one finger for us to wait as they resume their text. (In my mind, I hold a different finger pointed at the offender)<\/p>\n Signs wander over the waiting room and crawl over the walls requesting cell phones to be silenced during a visit with the physician. Hah! Also ignored!<\/p>\n A gynecologist told me of patients who have reached for their cell after speculums have been inserted.<\/p>\n I await the “slings and arrows” of my readers for my presumptuousness in using this elegant soliloquy* in this simplistic context<\/p>\n Doctor Curmudgeon\u00ae is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.<\/p>\n
\nWhether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer<\/strong><\/em>
\nThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,<\/strong><\/em>
\nOr to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,<\/strong><\/em>
\nAnd by opposing end them: to die, to sleep<\/strong><\/em>
\nNo more; and by a sleep, to say we end<\/strong><\/em>
\nthe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks<\/strong><\/em>
\nthat Flesh is heir to?”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n