Doctors without pagers

[the prodogy]

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What are some specialties where doctors dont carry a pager? I know that ER docs dont carry one and are given a set schedule. What are some other specialties?

 

[Bacchus]

Its hard to get away from the pager, I feel, until you gain some seniority and still you will be put on call with a pager. All necessary surgical specialities and other immediate-threat specialties will more than likely have a pager.

Edit: Indeed I know remember my FP wearing a pager, thanks Dr. Mom! 🙂

 

[linkDO]

umm, i worked in an ER for two years and ALL the doctors had pagers.

do you mean specialties where they dont have to be on call or on standby? where you could be paged into the hospital while you were sleeping at home?

 

[engineeredout]

DOs don't carry pagers, they're only given to real doctors.

 

[DrMom]

No set rules and varies from place to place. Virtually every IM and FM doc I know (private or academic) carry pagers. Maybe not all of the time, but they all take some kind of call or need to be contacted by floor nurses, etc. I'm in EM and have to have a pager for my residency (no battery in it right now), but I don't know any EM docs, including my academic attendings, who carry pagers.

The underlying thing is this: almost all docs work more than 40 hrs a week (some many more) and most take some kind of call.

 

[Phenol312]

Random question...but can anything substitute for the good ol' alphanumeric pager?

 

[goosedander]

Not only do I want a pager, I want a BIG one. Those things are sweet. When you roll into a Coco's or something with one of those, people know you must be somebody.

 

[Phenol312]

They just seem a bit archaic to me...I heard that theyre still in use because of the frequency they run on or some such business and that's a 'safe' frequency to use in a hospital. They're also notoriously reliable..I'm just surprised they havent found a more 'hi-tech' means of handling communications. Although...it does fit its purpose quite well and gets the job done.

 

[Bacchus]

They could probably use cell phones and texting. At Penn's hospital the transport system is run by way of text message. When I volunteered I had to carry around a phone and respond to any texts I got for my floor.

 

[MossPoh]

They just seem a bit archaic to me...I heard that theyre still in use because of the frequency they run on or some such business and that's a 'safe' frequency to use in a hospital. They're also notoriously reliable..I'm just surprised they havent found a more 'hi-tech' means of handling communications. Although...it does fit its purpose quite well and gets the job done.

Cell phones have notoriously bad reception in hospitals too. Pagers just seem to work better. That being said, most of the docs I know don't bother with pagers anymore. It just goes to their cell phone. If they are in the hospital people know where they are and forward the calls a lot of the time.

 

[engineeredout]

They just seem a bit archaic to me...I heard that theyre still in use because of the frequency they run on or some such business and that's a 'safe' frequency to use in a hospital. They're also notoriously reliable..I'm just surprised they havent found a more 'hi-tech' means of handling communications. Although...it does fit its purpose quite well and gets the job done.

At the hospital I volunteered at all the staff carried around these speaker things around their neck. From it you could use voice commands to call any staff member in the hospital and either talk to them directly or leave a voicemail. Seemed to take the place of pagers.

 

[Bacchus]

Cell phones have notoriously bad reception in hospitals too. Pagers just seem to work better. That being said, most of the docs I know don't bother with pagers anymore. It just goes to their cell phone. If they are in the hospital people know where they are and forward the calls a lot of the time.

Hmm, I could go from floor 14 to the basement without any loss of reception along with elevator shafts. I guess its just the capital the hospital has to implement an effective and reliable system.

 

[Chocolate Bear]

Verizon tends to work in cement buildings, like hospital basements, etc. ATT tends to not. Many academic centers have contracts with Verizon.

 

[EyeDR_oo]

Hmm, I could go from floor 14 to the basement without any loss of reception along with elevator shafts. I guess its just the capital the hospital has to implement an effective and reliable system.

Bacchus, if you dont mind me asking who did you shadow in the ER dept over here at HUP?

And to keep along the subject of the thread - it seems to not be an issue ATT or Verizon in any of the hospital buildings (at least over here).

 

[Bacchus]

I didn't shadow anyone at HUP - I did the volunteer office's formal program.

 

[nevinleiby]

DOs don't carry pagers, they're only given to real doctors.

So that's why your banned around here so often

 

[nevinleiby]

At the hospital I volunteered at all the staff carried around these speaker things around their neck. From it you could use voice commands to call any staff member in the hospital and either talk to them directly or leave a voicemail. Seemed to take the place of pagers.

Vocera

Wifi phone. They are pretty sweet and you can program them with your different numbers (cell, home, pager), ask where someone last called from "where is John Olliver?", "Call ED Interpretor", "Call Pod C Nurse", and even call in from home to reach someone directly within the department (eg, call your boss to see if he's in). The best thing is that it goes directly to voice - no call-backs necessary.

Unfortunately, those little things are about $300/device.

I also am inclined to think that pagers will be around with us for a long time because of cost. They are receive only, so you're not going to be chatting it up with friends or getting pictures on them, and the device and the plans are cheap as dirt!

 

[HALIVE]

Not only do I want a pager, I want a BIG one. Those things are sweet. When you roll into a Coco's or something with one of those, people know you must be somebody.

Lol, I also want a super big pager. This reminders me of people that purposefuly wear their name badges to go grocery shopping to highlight how important they are

 

[DrMattOglesby]

is anybody else consistently misreading the title of this thread to be Doctors without Borders ???

 

[JaggerPlate]

is anybody else consistently misreading the title of this thread to be Doctors without Borders ???

Yes. At first I thought it was a charity to buy poor doctors pagers ... I thought DAMN, the PCP guys are reallly hurting now. I could just imagine the friendly old grandpa character standing in front of some starving DO FM in a tattered white coat telling me that for $.10 a week I can give Dr. xx a new life.

 

[bcgans]

hahahaha I read the post wrong as well! At first I thought the OP had some clever name for a new physician contact system that was pager-less.

...maybe I'll look into that...

 

[nevinleiby]

is anybody else consistently misreading the title of this thread to be Doctors without Borders ???

👍

 

[Altruist]

At the hospital I volunteered at all the staff carried around these speaker things around their neck. From it you could use voice commands to call any staff member in the hospital and either talk to them directly or leave a voicemail. Seemed to take the place of pagers.

Ah, the Vocera... Dear lord, how they are hated. Their speech recognition leaves much to be desired, especially when your tone of voice is anything but flat. If you're excited because you need people into a certain room in a hurry, or if you're angry because the stupid piece of **** couldn't understand you the first 8 times you tried to connect to Karen on 3rd floor and it keeps connecting you to Darrin in the lab instead, you will know why the medics in our hospital stick to pagers.

In the hospital I work at, the nurses on the floor are required to wear them. I was transferring a patient upstairs one day, and the nurse I meet in the room has a Vocera:

Nurse: "Broadcast, third floor."
Vocera: "I didn't understand."
Nurse: "Broadcast, third floor."
Vocera: "I think you said to broadcast to third floor. Is this correct?"
Nurse: "Yes. [Now broadcasting] I need some lifting help in room whatever." [presses button to disconnect]
Me: "We used to have those downstairs. How do you guys like them?"
Nurse: "This *bleeping* thing is *bleep*. I'd like to throw it in the *bleeping* toilet."
Another nurse comes into the room: "Uh, you're still broadcasting to the whole floor."

At that point, the nurse turned beet red. Oh, how I laughed...

So anyway, that's one reason we stick to old, reliable methods of communication... if it works, why mess with it?

 

[Chocolate Bear]

😆 I wish I could've been there, Altruist!

 

[nevinleiby]

Ah, the Vocera... Dear lord, how they are hated. Their speech recognition leaves much to be desired, especially when your tone of voice is anything but flat. If you're excited because you need people into a certain room in a hurry, or if you're angry because the stupid piece of **** couldn't understand you the first 8 times you tried to connect to Karen on 3rd floor and it keeps connecting you to Darrin in the lab instead, you will know why the medics in our hospital stick to pagers.

In the hospital I work at, the nurses on the floor are required to wear them. I was transferring a patient upstairs one day, and the nurse I meet in the room has a Vocera:

Nurse: "Broadcast, third floor."
Vocera: "I didn't understand."
Nurse: "Broadcast, third floor."
Vocera: "I think you said to broadcast to third floor. Is this correct?"
Nurse: "Yes. [Now broadcasting] I need some lifting help in room whatever." [presses button to disconnect]
Me: "We used to have those downstairs. How do you guys like them?"
Nurse: "This *bleeping* thing is *bleep*. I'd like to throw it in the *bleeping* toilet."
Another nurse comes into the room: "Uh, you're still broadcasting to the whole floor."

At that point, the nurse turned beet red. Oh, how I laughed...

So anyway, that's one reason we stick to old, reliable methods of communication... if it works, why mess with it?

LOL...yeah, it can be sensitive or spotty if wi-fi reception is poor. You can program it to accept multiple names if you are having problems with one specific name, which tends to greatly improve the accuracy. For instance, I log in as just my first name instead of my full name...99% match rate. In other instances, you might be labeled poorly within the computer. For instance, "Call Jack Kovorkian" used to call one of our night-shift ED physicians instead...needless to say, we tweaked the spelling and it doesn't do that anymore... Check with your vocera admin - there are ways to help out, even if its just renaming some names or adding a period, extra syllable, adjusting the height of the device on the wearer, using the accent programming feature, etc.

One trick that I used to do on a guy (DMU 2012) was to login as him, then use the accent programming feature (which can also be used to recognize spanish instructions, btw) to re-program all of his commands. "Call ___" would log him out, "Locate ___" would call them, etc. Lots of fun 🤣

Man...my manager tried to get me to roll that out as a promotion long before I heard of some of the snafu's with it. I politely declined and brought up the importance of a flexible schedule for pre-med

 

[Altruist]

Check with your vocera admin - there are ways to help out, even if its just renaming some names or adding a period, extra syllable, adjusting the height of the device on the wearer, using the accent programming feature, etc.

I shouldn't say too much more about this until I'm done working at this particular hospital... but suffice it to say that the vocera admin didn't do much education nor much troubleshooting once the system was online. We've had it for at least 2 years now--the "trial" was done in the ER about 4 years ago. and the problems aren't any better than when we started.

Another great trick with vocera is to log in as somebody else, then re-record their name... Or "urgent call" someone in the bathroom. They were fun toys. If we'd ever got them to work properly, they might even have been useful.

 

[MossPoh]

Verizon tends to work in cement buildings, like hospital basements, etc. ATT tends to not. Many academic centers have contracts with Verizon.

Most be something about CDMA versus GSM. I always preferred GSM because I traveled a lot and have a european sim card for when I need it, but CDMA does seem to have that extra oomph.

 

[smq123]

They just seem a bit archaic to me...I heard that theyre still in use because of the frequency they run on or some such business and that's a 'safe' frequency to use in a hospital. They're also notoriously reliable..I'm just surprised they havent found a more 'hi-tech' means of handling communications. Although...it does fit its purpose quite well and gets the job done.

There was a thread a while back about why doctors didn't just ditch their pagers for their cell phones.

A lot of hospitals have crappy cell phone service. Parts of the hospitals tend to be dead zones, too, so service is extremely spotty.

Further, pagers have the advantage of being able to receive mass messages. For instance, if a serious trauma (multiple gunshot wound, etc.) comes in, you have to notify the entire trauma team (trauma surgery resident, trauma surgery attending, the ED attending, the ED resident, the anesthesiologist on call, blood bank, etc.). If you're using pagers, the page operator can send ONE page to everyone carrying a trauma pager. If you used cell phones, you would have to call each individual cell phone, which would take FOREVER. Same thing is true for obstetrical emergencies, in which you would have to notify the OB/gyn attending, the OB/gyn resident, the OB anesthesiologist, the neonatal ICU, the pediatrician on call, blood bank, etc.

Finally, pagers have the advantage that any pages sent over a system are documented. So if someone says, "WHERE were you?? I paged you 8 times!", you can check with the paging system to see if that's actually true or not. You might prevent yourself from getting in trouble that way.

At the hospital I volunteered at all the staff carried around these speaker things around their neck. From it you could use voice commands to call any staff member in the hospital and either talk to them directly or leave a voicemail. Seemed to take the place of pagers.

Ugh, Vocera. They're not easy to use, and, again, you can't contact multiple people simultaneously.

 

[nevinleiby]

Ugh, Vocera. They're not easy to use, and, again, you can't contact multiple people simultaneously.

Yes you can, but they must be within a group. For instance, "Broadcast to Residents". Groups can be setup by the admin so they don't have to "Join Residents" every time they login.

but agreed with vocera...it's frustrating. It's amazing how important a visual interface is in regards to the user's interaction. Without a screen and visual reminders it's difficult to establish a easily repeatable "path" and learn new commands. I think that users often have an emotional reaction using the system. They feel uncomfortable just talking to themselves without holding up some microphone, device, or even a bluetooth headset. I also think they have an emotional reaction, too, when the commands are mis-interpreted. They take it personally - they said the command properly, but someone didn't understand them. And the device keeps on making mistakes or demanding a reply. It is saying to them "You're an idiot. I don't understand what they heck you are saying. I don't like your voice. You don't speak clearly. What the heck do you want from me!?!" Meanwhile, all of your friends, patients, and patient's family watch you and hear every word of your unsuccessful attempts to just call someone...

/geek thoughts from an it -> pre-med guy

 

[engineeredout]

So that's why your banned around here so often

I've never been banned as a result of something I posted in Pre-osteo, its always in Pre-allo that I run into trouble. The absolute stupidity over there really pushes my buttons. (Ex: calling somebody a ****ing idiot for acting like a revolutionary war general by insisting that he has to wear his obama button to an interview)

 

[Terpskins99]

What are some specialties where doctors dont carry a pager?

The only physicians that don't carry a pager are the ones that stay in a clinic full-time. Family med docs, for instance.

If you work in a hospital, you will carry a pager.

Yes, I realize FM docs can work as hospitalists.

 

[smq123]

I think that users often have an emotional reaction using the system. They feel uncomfortable just talking to themselves without holding up some microphone, device, or even a bluetooth headset. I also think they have an emotional reaction, too, when the commands are mis-interpreted. They take it personally - they said the command properly, but someone didn't understand them.

That might be part of it. Although I remember a post on SDN from a while ago that was written by an ED tech. He was attacked by a psychotic patient, who also happened to be built like a football player. He tried to use his Vocera for help, but all it would say was "I did not understand." The guy could have died or been seriously injured. 😱

Another advantage of pagers over cell phones is that they can go longer without needing a batter change. Cell phones need to be recharged every day or so.

The only physicians that don't carry a pager are the ones that stay in a clinic full-time. Family med docs, for instance.

Even out-patient only physicians can carry pagers. At least, here the out-patient only FM people do. Sometimes their patients will page them with emergencies, or the office will page them if they need to call one of their patients right away.

 

[DrMom]

The only physicians that don't carry a pager are the ones that stay in a clinic full-time. Family med docs, for instance.

All of the all clinic FP docs I know carry pagers and take call. Patients call at all hours and those 24 hr answering services do page the docs on call.

 

[Terpskins99]

All of the all clinic FP docs I know carry pagers and take call. Patients call at all hours and those 24 hr answering services do page the docs on call.

Sigh, nevermind. On one of my rotations, the family medicine doc never carried a pager. I kinda figured most wouldn't have to. I stand corrected.

Bottom line: if you want to become a doctor, expect to carry a pager. 🙄

 

[nevinleiby]

That might be part of it. Although I remember a post on SDN from a while ago that was written by an ED tech. He was attacked by a psychotic patient, who also happened to be built like a football player. He tried to use his Vocera for help, but all it would say was "I did not understand." The guy could have died or been seriously injured. 😱

Agreed with you on that, but a pager wouldn't help you. Only shouting at the top of your lungs would work unless you have a cellphone. Fortunately the lanyard has an easy disconnect to no one can choke you with it...

However Vocera does have a broadcast feature that doesn't require you to acknowledge/ask for. Just hold down the call button for a few seconds and it will broadcast to all vocera badges....That happens about every 5 months at our hospital - someone does it by accident and my co-worker has to...resolve it...

woot! Just back from my PCOM interview!

 

[brucecanbeatyou]

I don't see why we don't use these babies.

 

[237696]

Sigh, nevermind. On one of my rotations, the family medicine doc never carried a pager. I kinda figured most wouldn't have to. I stand corrected.

Bottom line: if you want to become a doctor, expect to carry a pager. 🙄

My mom's a family physician. Even though she uses hospitalists and isn't on-call for the hospitals anymore, she still has to take calls from her answering service whenever she's out of the office when patients call after hours with questions or needs. I don't think she carries an actual pager anymore, just a cell phone that's attached to her hip that the service calls her on. Most of the calls are nervous parents calling about young newborns or infants (and this is just a portion of her practice, so I bet pediatricians get a ton of these) or people who need an emergency refill because they just realized they're out of medicine and they cannot wait until Monday morning (kind of a PITA... I swear some people intentionally wait to request their refills this way so that they don't have to get a paper prescription from the office and then wait for it to be filled at the pharmacy).

 

[binko]

You don't want a pager? Having a pager always seemed like one of the coolest parts of being a doctor. When I was little I'd get into my dad's stuff and put on a stethoscope and press the one and only button on his pager, which made it beep three times. Not only do will I be pissed if I don't get a pager when I'm a doctor, but I will demand that it be a big ol' black one from the 80s.