Rant: Physician pagers!

Want that! Want that!

I will not interrupt surgery if the phone call is not important I take a name and number but I don't take a message because I'm not a secretary. However there have been times when I've had to interrupt. For example, one day I answered the phone and it was an ICU nurse who was very concerned about a patient and had to update the surgeon who was on call. I did this and as soon as the case was finished we had to rush this ICU patient in to do an emergency splenectomy.

Another time I answered the phone and it was an intern. I told them Dr so and so is operating, can't answer the phone I'll take a message. He said it was important enough to interrupt. I asked what the problem was. He said patient X who had a liver resection wants to know when he can drink alcohol. Because I'm friendly with this particular surgeon I announced to the entire room that I had an urgent request and repeated it. The surgeon laughed his head off and said' tell Dr so and so the patient can drink alcohol in 5 months but no women for 2 years'. The intern was really embarrased he could hear us all cracking up and hung up on me. I don't think he'll ever make that mistake again

I just love when you are answering a page and then get chewed on for not being attentive to the instrument they just dropped or whatever. That happened to me and the Dr screamed, "get off the ******* phone!!!" Soooo when the ER sent xray's of the hip Fx into the OR, same Dr said, "what the story with this?" I promptly replied, "I don't know, that was the message I was taking when told to get off the ******* phone!!" He didn't ask me for anything else. Sweet!

Not just pagers....but the doctor's cell phones as well. Gah.

This is why I like text pagers. Half of the time they put enough information for me to figure out if it is urgent or not. There is absolutely no reason to just page with a number, but people do, and it's usually something that can wait, but i don't know and have to call back.

Our surgeons are told that we are not secretaries and are not to answer cell phones, and that even the pagers are a courtesy. I will answer the cell phone if I like the surgeon. If he's rude and indignant, sorry, I must follow the no-cell phone policy . Administration does back us up on not answering cell phones.

My favorite pages to get in the middle of an 8-hour case are the "Hey honey, want to do lunch in 30 minutes?" from the wife. One of my surgeons has a five that calls/pages about every 2 hours.

You always have the right to refuse. And if it's getting excessive say, "Dr I think it's more important to take care of your patient than your phone calls right now. It'll have to wait."

I was in the middle of counting sponges with the scrub nurse when the phone rang and the surgeon yelled out in the most pompous voice you could imagine:

SUSPEND THE COUNT AND ANSWER MY PHONE..... I AM THE VASCULAR SURGEON ON CALL!

I just looked at him in disbelief and kept on counting. What an idiot.

I was in the middle of counting sponges with the scrub nurse when the phone rang and the surgeon yelled out in the most pompous voice you could imagine:

SUSPEND THE COUNT AND ANSWER MY PHONE..... I AM THE VASCULAR SURGEON ON CALL!

I just looked at him in disbelief and kept on counting. What an idiot.

HAHA that's awesome! What did he do?

HAHA that's awesome! What did he do?

Tried to give me a lecture on how he's the vascular surgeon on call and if a AAA comes in then he has to be there to answer his phones. I told him that if he wants his phone answered then he can leave it with an intern or a med student because it is DISRESPECTFUL to nursing staff to expect us to behave like secretaries.

I actually filed a complaint about his behaviour because by interrupting like he did may have lead to an adverse event. The funny thing is that we only had 5 lap sponges to count and we got to 3 before he tried demanding to have his phone read. I would have been able to answer it anyway. I believe he was spoken to about his attitude.

yes yes yes.... this makes me so mad..... especially when your in the middle of COUNTING a large open abdomINAL case and they yell out " CAN YOU GE THAT PAGE"......ummm.... no I cant.... I will gladly answer if im not doing anything, but to add a pager call to my list of things that have to be done right NOW for my actual PATIENT on the table....it just adds more stress and frustration to what I allready have about the CURRENT case.....

I have answered calls from communtiy pharmacies, orders for tylenol, all kinds of nonsense. If its the trauma pager, I am all over that..... but sometimes the medical students even ask me to answer their cell phones!!!

Plus, I dont know how to work all of them... it just annoys me... I have heard that there are oRs that actually have a no pager policy... they leave them at the desk.... sounds like heaven.... but i wonder if thats mainly at non teaching hospitals? THE DOCS ARE SHORT STAFFED TOO..... but still, its a bit much sometimes. These pagers go off non stop....

I'm not a US or OR nurse so please forgive me if I don't understand the intricacies of theatre nursing, I do work between the wards and theatres in an advanced practice role.

Where I work we have teams of theatre staff, the scrub nurse / assistant the nurse in charge of theatres and at least 2 runners who are not scrubbed and maybe more depending on how big the case is.

We would never expect the nurse who is scrubbed to answer a pager or phone, but because the doctors usually have more than one sick patient and do need to be contactable it is expected that one of the runners answers pages and phones. Just to make sure that there is no emergency / urgent situation with another patient. I would have no hesitation in contacting my surgeon in theatre to inform him of something that was happening on the ward, and yes I know it is an inconvenience to the theatre staff but there are things he needs to know.

If I get no response to pages I will put theatre scrubs on and go into theatre if I have to but this takes me away from a potentially sick patient so I would prefer to phone or page. Providing there were no catastrophies going on in theatre I would expect a member of the theatre staff to answer that and relay the message.