Pagers: never had one, any pros?

[dr nomis]

There has been an incident documented on the FDA website about cell phone use increasing the drip on an IV pump. There's also a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia discussing this.

 

Just because they do it (almost every episode) on Scrubs, doesn't mean you can talk on your cell in the hospital.

 

As far as pagers go - it's my understanding that you'll be provided with one if you're on call.

[TimmyMax]

Hey,

 

As far as pagers go - it's my understanding that you'll be provided with one if you're on call.

Don't you worry! If you're on call, you'll certainly be outfitted with a pager...and curse the damn thing every time it goes off 3 minutes after you've turned the light off in your call room to try and get some of that oh-so-precious sleep.

Enjoy the pager-free life while you have it!

Oh, and despite the fact that there are warnings posted all over the place about cell phone use being prohibited in hospitals, tons of people (mostly patients' families) choose to ignore them anyway, despite the fact that they can screw with IV drip rates, ICU equipment and all kinds of other stuff. It's truly laughable when staff, residents and students use their cell phones in hospitals (and don't think that this doesn't happen!). For some reason, it's usually internal medicine residents that are the worst offenders.

[Kirsteen]

Don't you worry! If you're on call, you'll certainly be outfitted with a pager...and curse the damn thing every time it goes off 3 minutes after you've turned the light off in your call room to try and get some of that oh-so-precious sleep.

Enjoy the pager-free life while you have it!

 

Hi,

 

I asked similar questions re: pagers before I was actually given one. Now, for the most part, I often fancy chucking mine out the nearest window. This, in part, due to what I like to call Pavlov's paging phenomenon, i.e., when someone's pager goes off and they've chosen the same paging tone as you, your sympathetic nervous system processes reflexively kick in and you end up with a mini-workout thinking that you've been paged to see a patient when you're not even on call or toting a pager.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[noncestvrai]

Here we have to get our own pagers. Lousy McGill, 5K is not enough, and playing a secretary "de luxe" on the ward isn't enough as well? I actually hate my pager. I thought it was cool at first, but now on my second rotation, I dread the 4AM teaching...

 

My tone is "singing in the rain", call me optimistic.

 

I actually learned a lot during call, like how to live dangerously, for eg going get a haircut while praying not to get paged; besides the obvious 4AM teaching from the Senior...

 

I kid of course, I love medschool, but I think I'll like it even more once I graduate...wait, no there's residency also...=)

 

noncestvrai

[haiku_guy]

Hey,

 

with all this talk of pagers, I remembered this article I saw in the Sun. Now all you budding clinicians out there, make sure you use the hand sanatizer after you get those nast 6 AM pages...

 

 

 

Study finds doctors' pagers are rife with bacteria

U of Alberta account shows importance of washing hands

 

Doug Ward and Jodie Sinnema

CanWest News Service; Vancouver Sun

 

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

 

A new Alberta study finding that pagers used by physicians and other health professionals are rife with bacteria underscores the importance of washing hands, say B.C. medical experts.

"I don't think it tells us anything we didn't know before," said Children's Hospital microbiologist Dr. Edith Blondel-Hill, about the newly released study from the University of Alberta.

"But the major message we should get from this study is that hand-washing is still the best way to prevent the spread of infections."

The study found that 12 per cent of medical pagers tested carried bacteria capable of causing pneumonia, staph infections or other hospital-acquired infections.

Blondel-Hill said that bacteria can be found on most surfaces, including door handles, faucets, computer keyboards, telephones, stethoscopes and pagers. A recent British study even found bacteria on the ties worn by physicians, she added.

Most of the bacteria on surfaces that we touch everyday is harmless, said Blondel-Hill.

But some of the bacteria can potentially cause infection, which is why hand-washing is crucial, especially for health professionals dealing with sick and injured patients.

This is also the view of Dr. Sarah Forgie, the Alberta pediatric infectious disease physician who conducted the study.

"I think it is a real fear if people don't perform hand hygiene after touching their pager," Forgie said.

Dr. John Blatherwick, the chief medical health officer of Vancouver Coastal Health, said he was surprised the study's percentage of contaminated pagers wasn't higher.

"We touch so many surfaces in our daily lives. People don't wash off their cellphones or BlackBerrys or telephones," Blatherwick said.

He said the study points to the importance of hand-washing -- something that most people, including doctors, don't do enough.

Previous studies have looked at the amount of bacteria found on stethoscopes, medical scissors or keyboards at hospital stations, but Forgie said only two have focused on the bacteria build-up on pagers.