• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
    • Sponsorship
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Physicians, Technology

Phone Hygiene – Technology as a Reflection of Ourselves

July 8, 2019 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: 2 minutes

phone hygieneDuring a recent solo dinner at a local restaurant a gentleman sat down next to me at the bar and put his phone between us. To my disgust, he had miserable phone hygiene. His screen was caked with a think layer of biomatter. I could only imagine – which was the problem.

Knowing that a phone is ten times dirtier than a toilet seat, I moved.

Sounds extreme, but consider the context: I can’t stand anything on my screen. I compulsively wipe the surface of my iPad Pro twice a day. While I’m personally preoccupied with phone hygiene, the only other medical body with any level of concern appears to be the Indian dental community. There appears to be a budding phone hygiene cottage industry with the availability of UV Cell Phone Sanitizers.

I first became sensitive to device hygiene in the early days of Medicine X when I was keyboard to keyboard with digital health colleagues. I remember hightailing it to the Palo Alto Apple Store for iKlear wipe solution when I realized that my keyboard and screen were now other people’s business.

As medical staff there are standards for dress and other endpoints of appearance. And I always find it odd when physician colleagues shell out money for a decent car but not replace a shattered phone screen (or pony up the few bucks a month for insurance). As the conduits for physician-to-physician or patient communication, we need a device with a readable screen – and that includes preventing cumulative layers of grime.

My mother used to tell me that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. But the truth is that our technology is an extension of ourselves. Our phones are probably the most frequently used piece of interpersonal technology. How we maintain them needs some modicum of attention. Like brushing your teeth or making sure that you don’t have dirt under your nails, phone hygiene should be a thing for all of us.

Photo by Carlos Santiago on Unsplash

Related Articles

  • Assumptions About Technology
  • One Button Medicine
  • Doctors as Victims of Technology

Tagged With: Smartphones

Related Articles

  • Assumptions About Technology
  • One Button Medicine
  • Doctors as Victims of Technology

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian is a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine / Texas Children’s Hospital and one of health care’s influential voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

The most interesting stuff in medicine curated each week

Featured Articles

The Rise of Medicine’s Creative Class

Reactive and Creative Spaces

100,000 Connected Lemmings

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2022 · 33 Charts · Terms · Privacy