Silly Question - Pagers

[lalex]

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How do residents/doctors wake up by pager if they are so sleep deprived?

Especially for those that do not wake easy?

 

[deleted702880]

Well, I'd imagine that knowing that if you don't wake up then neither will your patient acts as a pretty strong motivator. That and when you do finally wake up you might find yourself unemployed.

 

[22031 Alum]

How do residents/doctors wake up by pager if they are so sleep deprived?

Especially for those that do not wake easy?

You just get used to it. Conditioning works wonders. Also, most pager tones are obnoxious so it's hard to sleep through them.

 

[caffeinemia]

you'll understand after intern year. That thing will run your life.

 

[getdown]

lol even the most sleep deprived person will wake up to a loud obnoxious sound blaring in your ear

 

[Snakes]

How do residents/doctors wake up by pager if they are so sleep deprived?

Especially for those that do not wake easy?

Clearly you have never had a baby.

 

[WingedOx]

Pretty sure my residency pager had a setting called "wake the dead".

 

[caffeinemia]

Clearly you have never had a baby.

You can let a baby wail all night. You can't let a hematoma or a K of 6.5 sit. 😛

 

[ImmunoLove]

Pretty sure my residency pager had a setting called "wake the dead".

LOL. Yeah, I've got that on mine too!

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Pretty sure my residency pager had a setting called "wake the dead".

Edit: Geez, I didn't realize the chestburster was that big...

 

[Pastamahn]

Well, I'd imagine that knowing that if you don't wake up then neither will your patient acts as a pretty strong motivator. That and when you do finally wake up you might find yourself unemployed.

I mean you can't exactly decide whether or not to wake up while you're still asleep.

 

[Spector1]

They're pretty loud. Also people get used to waking up to pagers because no one wants to be chewed out by the attending for being late

 

[RangerBob]

I actually did sleep through a page once... But two minutes later it just went off again because I didn't hit the "snooze" button. It was one of those "FYI pt's blood sugar was 65 but came up to 95 after eating," so I was able to just look at it and fall back asleep. But now I just place the pager close to my head at night.

Typically overnight I set my pager to "annoying" (the page everyone seems to use as their default), which helps ensure I wake up, and then during the day I switch it back to "beep + vibrate," which is FAR less annoying. I used to use just the vibrate alarm, but then patients think you're faking pages since they usually don't hear the vibrating pager. But why people use the default during the day is beyond me--I swear, some pager tones give me flashbacks...

 

[StudyLater]

you'll understand after intern year. That thing will run your life.

if(!EM)

This is actually something I was wondering as well. I just assume it's set as loud as possible and beeps continuously so you cannot sleep through it.

 

[Donald Juan]

I mean you can't exactly decide whether or not to wake up while you're still asleep.

No, you don't decide...but your brain does.

 

[Catalystik]

Conditioning works wonders.

So much so that you'll get an adrenaline jolt from the sound of anyone's pager. Sadly, many hospital call rooms are used by multiple people.