It’s funny what we remember. As a 3rd year medical student rotating in surgery I remember quite clearly sitting in my attending’s office at Worcester Memorial Hospital. He was a vascular surgeon. I don’t remember his name. On this particular day I had followed him to his office after rounds. He had just received his new pager and placed a call to whomever had sent him the device.
It seemed there was a problem. The device lacked the latest pager feature: vibration. His current pager only beeped. The dialog centered around his on-call demands as a vascular surgeon and his love for the symphony. With a buzzing pager he could sit comfortably in symphony hall without fear of interrupting anyone.
I sat quietly and wondered if I’d ever have a pager that buzzed.
The year was 1990. There were no smart phones. There were no cell phones. There were no PDAs. All we had was pagers. And a pager that buzzed was the technology that set us free.
Pager image via Wikipedia.
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It puts a smile on my face to reminisce about this — when simple innovations allowed me to be more socially acceptable! Today, however, we enjoy more than just less intrusive notifications. New technology is providing us with a diagnostic data stream. What’s exciting and daunting at the same time about this, is the ability to implement care decisions via connectivity across a network — all enabled by mobility and enhanced workflows. Now I don’t have to leave the “symphony” altogether!
Ultimately technology will define us. Thanks, Gopal.
The vibrating pager also allowed hearing impaired physicians to receive pages unobsstrusively. As a medical student in the late 80′s, vibrating pagers were only beginning to be available. One of my rotations gave me one as an MS3 and all the residents who were issued regular pagers were jealous, while all the attendings then wondered why they couldn’t get one. But when doing rotations at other sites, I was not always able to get a vibrating pager which severely limited my ability as a student to understand incoming pages. ADA did not come until 1992 and programs did not have to honor my requests for accommodation for my hearing impairment.
Whoa. I never even considered the advance for the hearing impaired. Huge.
Thank you, Mary.
I remember clearly the day I walked into the research lab – first time I met the Cardiologist who would serve as my research advisor. As I reached out to shake his hand he looked at my belt and said, “Good you already have your pager!”
And I remember just as clearly when I completed by Doctorate and left the transplant team that I ceremoniously removed the batteries from the pager and handed him back the pager – I think I have the batteries somewhere as a remembrance of that time.
That pager was my tether for more than 4 years…it connected me to the team…it informed me…and in a way, it empowered me.
I think the experience shaped me and drove me to expect connectivity and I have no doubt that that first technology was my gateway to every ‘early adopter’ exercise I have partaken in since.
I certainly couldn’t have predicted this connected future, but I certainly was prepared for it.
Dear Dr Bryan, I am happy to post my words here, please keep us posted!!!
Thanks,
Nafees