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My friend Tom is an emergency room physician. As he so often says, he has seen everything and has fixed everything.

Tom never worries about the quirks of his patients. That’s not his job. He’s there to mend, stitch, rescue and console.

He leaves social trend analysis to politicians (or, Heaven help us, to columnists).

But when I broke bread with Tom the other day, he was as agitated as I’ve ever seen him.

“Your team lose the big game?,” I asked.

“Worse,” he said. “I have seen the future, and I don’t like what I see.”

By the time I had passed the butter, Tom had launched into a description of what happened in the ER two nights earlier.

The story is enough to worry anyone — but especially those of us who have done many laps around the sun.

Tom was treating a patient who was 75 years old. She had fallen and smacked her head. She was quite bloody and more than a little woozy.

Any ER doc can tell you — heck, any person can tell you —falls when you’re elderly can be very dangerous. So Tom began as he always does when a “fall” patient is conscious — by asking what happened.

The woman began to answer. But then her cell phone rang.

She answered it.

It was her grandson.

She oohed and aahed over the kid’s description of his just-completed soccer game. She made the doc stand there while she continued oohing and aahing.

She never even tried to apologize. She just went on about her business as if a frivolous cell phone conversation in the ER was utterly necessary and utterly routine….When her life might have been on the line.

That was bad enough. Fifteen minutes later, Tom was face-to-face with a man who was also 75. He was complaining of chest pains.

Any ER doc can tell you — heck, any person can tell you —this might be a life-or-death situation. So Tom began as he always does when a heart attack might be under way — by asking the patient to describe exactly how he feels.

The man didn’t answer.

He was staring at his cell phone.

Tom grabbed a peek at the man’s screen. The man was playing a video game….When his life might have been on the line.

Tom didn’t say anything to either patient. And, by the grace of you-know-who, neither patient turned out to have been in serious danger.

But good fortune isn’t always in the cards, as those of us who have done many laps around the sun understand very well.

So why did these two patients act in such a (choose at least one) foolhardy, rude and self-indulgent manner?

“Because they could,” Tom theorized.

“Because even though they should know better at their age, they are subconsciously imitating their grandchildren — you know, those kids who never take their noses out of their phones.”

It’s bad enough that young people are losing touch with social norms and social cues because of cell phone addiction. But as Tom just discovered, those 21st Century behaviors are now turning up among those of us who did our best work in the last century.

What’s the answer here? Tom flipped his palms upward. “Darned if I know,” he said.

We chewed it over for the next 15 minutes.

Clearly, Tom and his fellow ER docs can’t refuse to treat someone just because the patient is buried in a cell phone. They could be sued or fired, maybe both.

Nor can emergency rooms post signs that require patients to stow their phones. An ER does not exist to monitor social behavior.

Yes, ERs can forbid smoking, drinking, drug use and loud noise. But those are safety and health issues. A smart phone is only an annoyance.

Nor can individual ER docs take a phone away from a patient. “Can you imagine me doing that to a 75-year-old?,” Tom asked. “It would be like putting my mother in time out.”

The best answer we could come up with is for ER docs to appeal to sweet reason.

Just tell the patient that you want to help them as best you can, I counseled Tom. Then point out that glomming onto a cell phone makes that task much harder.

Tom said he’d try this in the future. But then he shook his head.

“I always found older patients to be sensible, careful, alert, really hoping to see tomorrow,” he said. “But now I can’t always say that anymore.”

Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.