Seriously... where can I get a pager?

[Boardz]

Previous threads aren't helpful. Any idea where I can get a pager?

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[Boardz]

I would suggest amazon or ebay.

May I ask why?

because i'm in medical school? so i'll buy one on amazon and ebay and it's no problem activating it?

 

[greatnt249]

Previous threads aren't helpful. Any idea where I can get a pager?

Usually the hospital provides them to you. If you aren't doing rotations yet, I'm going to echo the sentiments of the other poster...why do you feel you need a pager? Because, to be honest, even on clinical rotations almost no one ever bothers to page you.

 

[Boardz]

Usually the hospital provides them to you. If you aren't doing rotations yet, I'm going to echo the sentiments of the other poster...why do you feel you need a pager? Because, to be honest, even on clinical rotations almost no one ever bothers to page you.

I start rotations in a week and a half or so and pagers are required and they're also from the early 90's so it's like trying to find widget or thundercats memorabilia or something everyone looks at me like i'm crazy when I ask.

 

[diagonal]

Just buy a pack of gum and some duct tape. No one will be the wiser.

 

[High Roller]

I start rotations in a week and a half or so and pagers are required and they're also from the early 90's so it's like trying to find widget or thundercats memorabilia or something everyone looks at me like i'm crazy when I ask.

What?

Soo...do they provide a pager or not?

 

[Boardz]

What?

Soo...do they provide a pager or not?

jesus christ nvmd.

 

[Rumalum]

1. find classmates that have a pager
2. steal theirs
3. ?????
4. profit

 

[Perrotfish]

I start rotations in a week and a half or so and pagers are required and they're also from the early 90's so it's like trying to find widget or thundercats memorabilia or something everyone looks at me like i'm crazy when I ask.

Its really strange that they're asking you to buy one. Normally med students aren't given pagers, and normally when they are issued by your med school. The only reason they use these things is because they rig the hospital so that they have perfect reception for the brand they're using. If you're buying your own it doesn't have any real advantage over the cell phone you almost certainly already carry.

Its so atypical my first guess would be that you misunderstood and you were supposed to pick one up at your deans office or something. If this is seriously what they want ask your classmates where they got theirs.

 

[SirGecko]

Its really strange that they're asking you to buy one. Normally med students aren't given pagers, and normally when they are issued by your med school. The only reason they use these things is because they rig the hospital so that they have perfect reception for the brand they're using. If you're buying your own it doesn't have any real advantage over the cell phone you almost certainly already carry.

Its so atypical my first guess would be that you misunderstood and you were supposed to pick one up at your deans office or something. If this is seriously what they want ask your classmates where they got theirs.

^This. If they want you to use a pager they will give you one. Otherwise just give people your cell phone if they want to get a hold of you. (and make sure you have texting, residents love texting)

 

[DrSnips]

Its really strange that they're asking you to buy one. Normally med students aren't given pagers, and normally when they are issued by your med school. The only reason they use these things is because they rig the hospital so that they have perfect reception for the brand they're using. If you're buying your own it doesn't have any real advantage over the cell phone you almost certainly already carry.

Its so atypical my first guess would be that you misunderstood and you were supposed to pick one up at your deans office or something. If this is seriously what they want ask your classmates where they got theirs.

Had to...

View attachment pager.jpg

 

[Law2Doc]

Usually the hospital provides them to you. If you aren't doing rotations yet, I'm going to echo the sentiments of the other poster...why do you feel you need a pager? Because, to be honest, even on clinical rotations almost no one ever bothers to page you.

When I did med school, pagers were recommended but also not provided. The class as a group got a plan with one of the few pager companies still out there, and we all got pagers for some nominal amount per month. It's probably not financially feasible for just one person to buy a pager and subscribe to a plan, but if you can round up another 50 people it should work.

These days though, a smartphone with texting should be adequate. And no you will rarely get paged unless you are on a sub-I. As a resident I'm not going to hunt down my med students unless I need an extra pair of hands -- most of the cool stuff at night you see if you are around, and miss if you aren't. When someone wakes me up to go look at a patient or do a consult, I just go get it over with -- I'm not going to start paging people.

 

[KnuxNole]

Hospitals that use pagers IMO are lame as hell. I didn't even know pagers were still in circulation until I did a rotation at a place which gives people pagers. I guess they didn't know of this invention called a phone or texting(or even a smart phone....).

Cause yes, I love to get paged, waste 5-10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back, have them not answer, so I have to page them, and wait even more D:

 

[KnuxNole]

Usually the hospital provides them to you. If you aren't doing rotations yet, I'm going to echo the sentiments of the other poster...why do you feel you need a pager? Because, to be honest, even on clinical rotations almost no one ever bothers to page you.

This is true...remember, 3rd years are NOT the people that interns will run to when things crash. If they do, they probably aren't thinking straight.

Usually I've been summoned with texts/pages when they tell me to go "read" when there is nothing to do for me in Surg and OB/GYN. Which is good cause I don't like to wander around when the hospital gets boring. But, they almost never remember to do it. Which gets annoying. Except the last week...then it's ok if they "forget" to page 😛

 

[Mass Effect]

Hospitals that use pagers IMO are lame as hell. I didn't even know pagers were still in circulation until I did a rotation at a place which gives people pagers. I guess they didn't know of this invention called a phone or texting(or even a smart phone....).

Cause yes, I love to get paged, waste 5-10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back, have them not answer, so I have to page them, and wait even more D:

If you have a cell phone, why do you have to waste 5-10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back? 🙂

 

[KnuxNole]

Because noone else uses cell phones there -___-

 

[deleted103644]

This is bizarre.

Usually hospitals issue pagers, telling you to get your own is stupid.

Here's why - most hospitals rely on a transmitter for pager service within the hospital on top of a cellular provider. That way your pager has signal even when your cellphone would not at the hospital.

Just tell people to text your cell. Don't buy a pager if your hospital really doesn't issue them.

Although, you might want to use Google Voice or something similar do you don't give nurses your real number and can shut off access when not on call.

 

[Law2Doc]

If you have a cell phone, why do you have to waste 5-10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back? 🙂

Pagers are useful because:
1. You don't want to give out your cell phone to every person you interact with in the hospital. They will jot it down, pass it on, and you will get calls at home at 3 am from nurses asking if some patient you never heard of can take Gasex because the resident never called them back.

2. Cell phone reception is very spotty in hospitals, thanks to the radiology machine interference. Pagers tend to work better for some reason.

 

[Droopy Snoopy]

Hospitals that use pagers IMO are lame as hell. I didn't even know pagers were still in circulation until I did a rotation at a place which gives people pagers. I guess they didn't know of this invention called a phone or texting(or even a smart phone....).

Cause yes, I love to get paged, waste 5-10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back, have them not answer, so I have to page them, and wait even more D:

Pagers = more dependable than cell phones. In my city for example AT&T reception generally sucks ass, but even Verizon drops to zero when I'm in the bowels of my university hospital sub-basement or within the lead paint-lined walls of that black hole of society known as the VA.

I also don't want my personal cell# floating around out there for any staff to look up or patients requesting their records. Would imagine this goes double for some specialists (OB, peds, and psych come to mind).

EDIT: Yeah what L2D said...

 

[Perrotfish]

Pagers are useful because:
1. You don't want to give out your cell phone to every person you interact with in the hospital. They will jot it down, pass it on, and you will get calls at home at 3 am from nurses asking if some patient you never heard of can take Gasex because the resident never called them back.

2. Cell phone reception is very spotty in hospitals, thanks to the radiology machine interference. Pagers tend to work better for some reason.

At hospitals that use phones they issue the phones (you only give out a work number) and rig the hospital with phone signal boosters. I think it works well.

 

[deleted103644]

Pagers are useful because:
1. You don't want to give out your cell phone to every person you interact with in the hospital. They will jot it down, pass it on, and you will get calls at home at 3 am from nurses asking if some patient you never heard of can take Gasex because the resident never called them back.

2. Cell phone reception is very spotty in hospitals, thanks to the radiology machine interference. Pagers tend to work better for some reason.

Don't blame it on radiology - that stuff is usually in the basement (and the MRIs are usually in Faraday cages, so nothing in or out).

Lots of other wireless equipment on the floors though, plus hospitals tend to have thick walks filled with all sorts of extra pipes and wires.

Hospitals generally have onsite transmitters for their pager service, so you have short range + cellular transmissions coming in --> more reliable.

Why pagers instead of text messaging though? Expense is the only advantage I can think of...

As for cell phones - use Google Voice to get a junk number that only forwards to your cell phone (or any other phone) when you want it to...

 

[High Roller]

At hospitals that use phones they issue the phones (you only give out a work number) and rig the hospital with phone signal boosters. I think it works well.

Exactly.

As much as my hospital claims that pagers cost...you could cover everyone with a work phone and signal boosters. Why they don't do this is beyond me.

Pagers are an old and inefficient piece of technology. Hell, even a walkie-takie is an upgrade.

For the OP: don't go out an buy a pager, especially as a med student. Just give the people you work with your phone number.

 

[deleted103644]

Going to say it a third time - give a Google Voice #, not your direct number.

You can tweak forwarding and do not disturb options easily.

 

[greatnt249]

If you have a cell phone, why do you have to waste 5-10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back? 🙂

Because, at least at the hospital I rotate through, most of the phones on the floor are internally connected but cannot be dialed directly from an outside line. Thus, you have to go through the annoyance of calling the hospital operator first, get put on hold, and have them connect you to the phone you were paged to. I'm kind of curious as to the layout of your hospital if it takes you 5-10 minutes to find a phone.

Heck of a lot easier just to get a page "Dr. X please call #xxxxx concerning pt X" and call through the internal system than it is to dial as an outside line.

 

[forsparta]

Mayo Medical school provides pagers starting day one. I'm surprised you dont even get them during clinical years.

 

[Brotato]

Mayo Medical school provides pagers starting day one. I'm surprised you dont even get them during clinical years.

What is the point of this other than to stroke egos?

"Paging Mr./Ms. MS1, there's a code in the gross anatomy lab?"

 

[deleted103644]

What is the point of this other than to stroke egos?

"Paging Mr./Ms. MS1, there's a code in the gross anatomy lab?"

Yeah, pager before wards is silly. Then again, maybe Mayo starts students in the hospital almost immediately. That seems to be the trend now (pushing clinical stuff as early as possible).

 

[link2swim06]

Are meds students really that important to need a pager? Its not like you are mission critical for anything. If you are on a service that gets paged, they probably will just give you a pager to carry around.

They did away with pagers at my school because most students said they only got paged 0 or 1 times in all of third year. At that rate, they can just text my personal cell phone, when I get reception...I will respond.

 

[Mass Effect]

Pagers are useful because:
1. You don't want to give out your cell phone to every person you interact with in the hospital. They will jot it down, pass it on, and you will get calls at home at 3 am from nurses asking if some patient you never heard of can take Gasex because the resident never called them back.

2. Cell phone reception is very spotty in hospitals, thanks to the radiology machine interference. Pagers tend to work better for some reason.

Well, I wasn't really asking. The poster said that he has a cell phone, so why would he use a pager and waste 10 minutes trying to find a phone to call people back. I was just teasing, but my point was if he has a cell and gets a pager, he won't have to waste 10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back since his cell will be with him anyway.

 

[forsparta]

Yeah, pager before wards is silly. Then again, maybe Mayo starts students in the hospital almost immediately. That seems to be the trend now (pushing clinical stuff as early as possible).

Correct. Plus, they use it as our primary contact

 

[FunnyCurrent]

every year the graduating 4th years sell their pagers to the 3rd years. Because there has been no increase in class size recently nobody at my school ever has to buy new pagers. Did you ask around at all before posting here?

 

[KnuxNole]

Are meds students really that important to need a pager? Its not like you are mission critical for anything. If you are on a service that gets paged, they probably will just give you a pager to carry around.

They did away with pagers at my school because most students said they only got paged 0 or 1 times in all of third year. At that rate, they can just text my personal cell phone, when I get reception...I will respond.

No they are not. MS3 are useless piles of ****. They get paged to see stuff for their education, but when things goes south, they will call the quadriplegic homeless guy before a little medical student 😛

 

[greatnt249]

Well, I wasn't really asking. The poster said that he has a cell phone, so why would he use a pager and waste 10 minutes trying to find a phone to call people back. I was just teasing, but my point was if he has a cell and gets a pager, he won't have to waste 10 minutes trying to find a phone to call them back since his cell will be with him anyway.

Here, I'll re-quote myself since apparently you didn't read the response I directed at you the first time I wrote it:

Because, at least at the hospital I rotate through, most of the phones on the floor are internally connected but cannot be dialed directly from an outside line. Thus, you have to go through the annoyance of calling the hospital operator first, get put on hold, and have them connect you to the phone you were paged to. I'm kind of curious as to the layout of your hospital if it takes you 5-10 minutes to find a phone.

Heck of a lot easier just to get a page "Dr. X please call #xxxxx concerning pt X" and call through the internal system than it is to dial as an outside line.

 

[KnuxNole]

I think that's directed at me, for saying it takes 5 mins or so to find a landphone 😳

But...that's mainly because they usually page me when I'm in the cafeteria or student lounge, so it takes a little while to find an empty phone.

 

[Boardz]

Yeah, i'm gonna use my cell phone. If i get in trouble i get in trouble. There was a group deal for our class but I was lazy and figured I could find a better pager with better prices but whatever. asking around, no one gets paged anyways.

 

[CallMeDoctorLov]

Previous threads aren't helpful. Any idea where I can get a pager?

....the 1980s

 

[Caesar]

we used pagers direct or something like that. It might be the only place left in existence.

 

[JamesA]

Previous threads aren't helpful. Any idea where I can get a pager?

Our class did a group purchase through PagersDirect.net. They offered us a group discount. There aren't too many places offering pagers anymore.

 

[iwonder13]

I'm amazed, you guys are future doctors? I'm not sure what is more worrisome. The poor poster who could not find a pager service or the folks that bashed him/her rather than provide information needed.

http://www.americanmessaging.net or usamobility.com. Pretty much the only providers there are. This does not include resellers of the previous mentioned providers.

Or.....maybe that is why you guys will have minions like me to provide useless information like this. Never the less, I'm concerned about the future of my health care.

 

[Wordead]

I'm amazed, you guys are future doctors? I'm not sure what is more worrisome. The poor poster who could not find a pager service or the folks that bashed him/her rather than provide information needed.

http://www.americanmessaging.net or usamobility.com. Pretty much the only providers there are. This does not include resellers of the previous mentioned providers.

Or.....maybe that is why you guys will have minions like me to provide useless information like this. Never the less, I'm concerned about the future of my health care.

Hitler would probably have provided the info too

 

[Rendar5]

They did provide the information that he needed; the only one appearing to be a youknowwhat is you. Now please continue worrying about your future healthcare

 

[munchymanRX]

Previous threads aren't helpful. Any idea where I can get a pager?

Your hospital site will give you one once you go on rotations. Buying any random one isn't advisable. best to make sure it's one that's compatible with a specific site's paging system (often automated or at least computer-based)

 

[evilbooyaa]

The hospital should provide one for you. If it doesn't, the you can't get paged, simple as that. I wouldn't consider buying a pager for the wards.

 

[airplanes]

OP had,no idea what he was talking about and never came back. pagers have many advantages over cell phones and text, but not, I would argue, over work phones.

For those of you nominating texts to your cell phone...do you really want your phone to scream at you every time you get a text from a fried, gf, fairy godmother etc? I'm not trying to have my phone go off like a fire alarm all day long when it's 99% personal texts.

I'm amazed, you guys are future doctors? I'm not sure what is more worrisome. The poor poster who could not find a pager service or the folks that bashed him/her rather than provide information needed.

http://www.americanmessaging.net or usamobility.com. Pretty much the only providers there are. This does not include resellers of the previous mentioned providers.

Or.....maybe that is why you guys will have minions like me to provide useless information like this. Never the less, I'm concerned about the future of my health care.

To your entire post....lol what?

 

[tiedyeddog]

I'm amazed, you guys are future doctors? I'm not sure what is more worrisome. The poor poster who could not find a pager service or the folks that bashed him/her rather than provide information needed.

http://www.americanmessaging.net or usamobility.com. Pretty much the only providers there are. This does not include resellers of the previous mentioned providers.

Or.....maybe that is why you guys will have minions like me to provide useless information like this. Never the less, I'm concerned about the future of my health care.

Welcome to SDN, or maybe even your first internet forum!

 

[michaelrack]

....the 1980s

I didn't get my first cell phone until 2005.

 

[vandyam]

I'm amazed, you guys are future doctors? I'm not sure what is more worrisome. The poor poster who could not find a pager service or the folks that bashed him/her rather than provide information needed.

http://www.americanmessaging.net or usamobility.com. Pretty much the only providers there are. This does not include resellers of the previous mentioned providers.

Or.....maybe that is why you guys will have minions like me to provide useless information like this. Never the less, I'm concerned about the future of my health care.

I'm not sure what is more worrisome...that you are genuinely upset by an internet forum, or that you created an account to post a website link that can be found by typing 2 words into google. Nice first post! 👍

 

[yuiness]

Cell phone signal at my institution is atrocious, especially in the ED (which, for some reason, is in the basement). In fact, the reception is so spotty that I often prefer to put my phone on airplane mode (with wifi on for easy access to reference materials) so that it doesn't drain all its battery in an hour searching for signal. In a place like this, it's nice to have a pager to be reachable.

Also, as a 3rd year, I got a fair number of pages on medicine/neuro/psych/peds (where med students spend a lot of time digging up OSH records, making follow-up appointments, calling consults, etc.), and on subspecialty surgery call (where the consults were usually not particularly urgent, and the resident was usually happy to let me take an H&P by myself first).

 

[deleted103644]

Cell phone signal at my institution is atrocious, especially in the ED (which, for some reason, is in the basement). In fact, the reception is so spotty that I often prefer to put my phone on airplane mode (with wifi on for easy access to reference materials) so that it doesn't drain all its battery in an hour searching for signal. In a place like this, it's nice to have a pager to be reachable.

Also, as a 3rd year, I got a fair number of pages on medicine/neuro/psych/peds (where med students spend a lot of time digging up OSH records, making follow-up appointments, calling consults, etc.), and on subspecialty surgery call (where the consults were usually not particularly urgent, and the resident was usually happy to let me take an H&P by myself first).

Yes, but the reason your pager is accessible is that your hospital has a local transmitter for your pager service.

Buying a random pager still makes no sense - it only makes sense if your hospital is providing service.

 

[SpecterGT260]

Hitler would probably have provided the info too

I see what you did there 😀