Is a cell phone a must have for residency?

[Von Hohenheim]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Yes, I'm the last person on earth without a cell phone. I don't really need or want one. But I'm starting internship soon and I've been assuming that I'd need to get one for work. Do I really need a cell phone for residency? Why? Would not having a cell phone be a problem for you at work? How? Thanks.

 

[f_w]

Do I really need a cell phone for residency?

No.

Why?

Because you won't take home-call as an intern. The hospital will issue a pager to you and because you won't see the daylight for the first 12 months you can answer pages from a hospital phone any time you need to. The precious few days you are not in the hospital, you will gladly leave your pager in the car so some dimwitted RN who can decipher your name in the chart can't page you at 3 am to ask whether that tylenol you wrote 'prn T>100.8' was meant for fever 😉

 

[Skrubz]

Yes, I'm the last person on earth without a cell phone. I don't really need or want one. But I'm starting internship soon and I've been assuming that I'd need to get one for work. Do I really need a cell phone for residency? Why? Would not having a cell phone be a problem for you at work? How? Thanks.

Depends on what your hospital's cell policy is. And whether your phone gets reception in the hospital.

Pros of having a cell phone (or a spectralink phone that some hospitals provide)
1. Being able to answer pages on the go (this can be priceless, as anyone who's ever had to camp out at a phone to answer a dozen pages that come in simultaneously can attest to)
2. Being able to answer pages in areas without landlines (like on the road, walking to another building for clinic, or when you're on home call but not at home)

Cons of having a cell
1. Another gadget to carry around and lose
2. More money gone from your already meager paycheck
3. Sometimes you just want to be incommunicado

You certainly don't need to have a cell phone, but it can make your life easier in certain situations.

 

[Blade28]

Well, I carry a Treo, so I use it for the PDA functions as well. But sometimes it's useful to have a cell phone to return pages, when you aren't near a hospital phone (e.g. cafeteria, hallway, or in your car).

 

[mysophobe]

I have like 3 2.5x3.5 notebooks I carry in my front pocket that are filled with pt notes, proc. notes, etc. and stuffed with mini post-its.

 

[Blade28]

You carry copies of your progress notes and op notes with you? Or are these templates?

 

[mysophobe]

I used to copy everything into a notebook, but that stopped after about 20 mins. Now I use templates that I just stuff in there, and I make my own little notes to help me remember stuff. It's not all chart-related stuff. Some of it is my own personal stuff about a case or presentation that I want to remember.

I have a Treo, it just takes me forever to put anything into it, so I reverted to caveman mode.

 

[cabinbuilder]

Yes, I'm the last person on earth without a cell phone. I don't really need or want one. But I'm starting internship soon and I've been assuming that I'd need to get one for work. Do I really need a cell phone for residency? Why? Would not having a cell phone be a problem for you at work? How? Thanks.

Rest assured you are not the last person to not have a cell phone. I personally never saw the use for one. I have no one to call anyway. So I am in the same boat.

 

[turtle md]

The only reason I got one was b/c my hospital subsidizes our bill for $35/month, plus they give us a 19% discount, as long as I register my number with them as a work number. So I only pay $10/month (well, $20, since I got an additional phone for my wife on the family plan). $20/month was way cheaper than any home land-line option, so we just use our cells, and did away with the land-line. It has made things a little easier, especially since we have a code we can use to access the hospitals in-house system and make calls in-house without them counting against our minutes.

🙂

 

[Apollyon]

No cell here either - barely have a pager. I LOVE being incommunicado. Hell, I don't even have an answering machine (hooked up - a woman bought me one recently).

 

[fomites]

I think you could get by without a cell phone but sometimes it's just easier to return pages with your cell phone. Like, for instance, if you went to lunch outside the hospital or if you were stepping out of a meeting and didn't want to run down to a nurse's station.

 

[Blade28]

No cell here either - barely have a pager. I LOVE being incommunicado.

What? No pager? Are you in ER or something?

 

[mysophobe]

I get the shakes if I don't have my pager. I feel like something is gonna happen and no one will be able to get hold of me. That damn box is like a drug.

 

[Blade28]

It's fun for a second when you get your pager during orientation...then the damn thing starts going off on your first day of residency, and NEVER stops. 🙁

 

[mysophobe]

I'm afraid I might try to drown it over the next 5 years. Too bad you can't divorce your pager.

 

[Apollyon]

What? No pager? Are you in ER or something?

Yep. I am actually one of the few in my program that have a battery in it, and have it signed in at all times. The program director and coordinator are about the only ones who page me (apart from the rare social page). Still, since my pager number is not easily obtained, I'm still out of touch.

 

[Strap]

No Cell Phone = Cheap + No Friends

 

[Blade28]

Yep. I am actually one of the few in my program that have a battery in it, and have it signed in at all times. The program director and coordinator are about the only ones who page me (apart from the rare social page). Still, since my pager number is not easily obtained, I'm still out of touch.

Yeah, I always find it impossible to page the ER residents. 🙂 Usually have to wander down to the ER and find them.

 

[Medic_9]

**Not a Dr, but used to have a job with a pager that I wore 24/7

Once you are off duty or are no longer on a pager you will see how deeply that sound has effected you. You could be anywhere and once you hear that sound or ANY sound that is even remotely similar you will reach for your belt where your pager once was, your HR will speed up....then you realize that you no longer live that life...

It's bizarre. We are creatures of habit for sure.

 

[Blade28]

We get that any time someone else's pager goes off (with the same ring as you).

Amazing how there are so many different ringtones to choose from, but everyone seems to pick the same 1 of 3.

 

[Apollyon]

That's a couple of things I hope the newly-minted doctors remember:

1. It is TOTALLY rude to have your pager set to sound instead of vibrate when you're in a lecture - and you look like a bonehead when you don't realize that it is your pager going off. It's even more rude and stupider when it is your cell phone that has a ring tone that you think is "cute", and anyone else thinks is "*****ic" - on par with letting your 2 year old answer the telephone.

2. It is likewise rude and unprofessional to a. enter or exit a lecture through a door at the front of the room (if there is one) and b. let any door slam (no matter where) if you enter or exit a room when someone is lecturing.

That is all.

 

[Blade28]

Sound advice.

 

[f_w]

A table borrowed from the standard work on physicians and their beepers:

http://www.neonatology.org/pearls/beeper.html


Table: Clinical Staging and Natural History of Beeper Obliterans.

Stage Status and Description

0 Condition-free. Beeper functions as designed. Physician alert and ready. Reaches phone within 15 sec. 100% of time. Body mass index (BMI) = 22 (BMI defined as wt/ht^2 in kg/m^2).

1 Pager Paunch. Truncal flexion by wearer sets off beeper test button. Physician frequently confused. Answers less than 85% of pages. BMI = 25 kg/m^2.

2 Beeper Bulge. Abdominal overhang intermittently muffles audio tones ("souffle effect"). Worsened by consumption of high-fiber meals. Sufferer strains at listening, ameliorated by loss of high-tone hearing. BMI = 28 kg/m^2.

3 Pager Inversus. Tone set off even by quiet respirations. Roll of pants at the belt line causes pager inversion with characteristic "echo effect." Wearer disoriented by microwave beeps in hospital snack bar. Greater than 125% of pages answered (paradoxical irritability). BMI = 31 kg/m^2.

4 Beeper Obliterans. Beeper completely enveloped by adipose tissue. Associated with increased risk of coronary artery and gallbladder diseases, as well as non-insulin-dependent diabetes; less than 3% of pages answered. BMI of at least 35 kg/m^2. Surgical removal or elevation to chairmanship may be indicated (see text).

 

[Blade28]

That's hilarious!