Do you turn your pager off on Vacation?

[ryerica22]

Hi,
When you are done for work for the day or on vacation, do you guys turn your pager off? Or are you obligated to still answer it?

Thanks

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[colbgw02]

Yes. No.

 

[BoardingDoc]

Hi,
When you are done for work for the day or on vacation, do you guys turn your pager off? Or are you obligated to still answer it?

Thanks

If you are not at work and not on call, why the hell would you have your pager turned on?

 

[Raryn]

I forward it to the on call individual and turn it off.

 

[Perrotfish]

Hi,
When you are done for work for the day or on vacation, do you guys turn your pager off? Or are you obligated to still answer it?

Thanks

Its program dependent, so I would ask your program director rather than the internet. Some programs expect Interns to be available after hours in case there is a question on the patients that they admitted. A few programs expect all Interns to be on backup call for call outs at all times, and require you to have your pager on any time you're not on a formal vacation block. I haven't heard of any programs that require you to be in contact on a vacation block, but there's no reason a program couldn't demand it if they wanted to. Odds are you'll just turn your pager off when you leave, but its ulltiamtely up to them.

 

[LucidSplash]

I am always available by phone for any of my colleagues to call with questions about patients I have seen or operated on. All the docs have my number and visa versa and I answer it at all hours. However my pager I leave in the car or put on silent when I’m home and not on call.

 

[clausewitz2]

When I am on vacation I leave my pager in my desk drawer. That said, I also have my office voicemail set up to generate a secure email that pushes to my phone in case something really urgent goes down.

(I recognize having one's own office, office line, and desk is somewhat anomalous for most residents).

 

[GoSpursGo]

I think it's almost universally accepted that you can turn your pager off while on vacation. As others have said, whether it's ok to do so at the end of the day is program and especially specialty-dependent.

Personally, in residency I would leave my pager on even when I'm at home. I didn't want someone paging me about something urgent and not knowing how to get in touch with he team, and once every other month or so I would get a page when I wasn't working, usually because the person paged me because I wrote the last note or placed an order or whatever. I would reply just to give them the contact info for the on call team--wouldn't place orders, wouldn't call myself, but at least made sure they knew who to call. Maybe they would have figured it out on their own but it really didn't take me more than 30 seconds to answer most of those pages.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I do not have a pager anymore.
Best thing ever.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[mimelim]

I turned off my pager somewhere in the middle of PGY3 and haven't turned it on since. Everyone calls/texts my cell phone. As @LucidSplash said, I'm always available if someone has questions/concerns about my patients. Many of our inpatient referrals get texted to me by IM/EM/Cards/Renal etc. I typically just pass the text onto our service group chat on the HIPAA compliant text app for whoever is on call/in house. But, if I operated on someone or have been consulted on someone, I'll make the time regardless of where I am. I've answered my cell phone 800 feet up on a climb in Mexico. Obviously, I don't have the expectation that everyone does the same, but I don't know how to not do it. Personality flaw I guess...

 

[HomeSkool]

I stopped taking my pager home 2/3 of the way through intern year. The hospital has my cell number if they really need me.

 

[hallowmann]

We're not expected to answer/have our pagers at home, but we are expected to have them covered. They usually route into the call pager when I'm off-duty or on vacation.

 

[UKEMdoc]

Are you taking the ****?

If you can be contacted by work then it isn't a vacation. If it's desperate/major incident then apparently in the last twenty years there's a ubiquitous invention known as the cell phone. There is always the response of "I'd love to help, unfortunately I'm on my third Margarita of the day. If it's anything other than a conga line then call someone who cares"

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

My work phone with the paging app on it gets tossed into the office room when I get home and typically doesn’t get looked at till the next morning when I get ready to go in.

The other residents have my personal number if they have some urgent question about a patient I was taking care of earlier that can’t be answered there (although honestly this has happened once ever I think and I’ve never called a resident who’s not in house when I’ve been working). Otherwise, everyone else needs to find the team who’s currently covering that patient, not mwah.

And yeah vacation? Come on don’t make me laugh. What would make you think you’d need to take a pager on vacation unless you’re explicitly told you need to cover for something? I’d get it if you were a private practice doctor with your own panel of patients and didn’t have another partner covering for you but a resident? There’s a reason there’s other residents in the program....it’s because they’re supposed to be working when you’re not.

 

[Jimmy B]

When I'm out man-I'M OUT. So no-my pager is off and out of my sight when I'm on vacation.