My recent relationship with the on-call bleep these past few days has been, to say the least, bitter. Having thought about all the calls I received, I've managed to categorise them:
Trash-bleep: "Hi doc, just called to let you know...." . This sentence infuriates me as 80% of the time I'm told some pointless drivel, and mostly it is to shift any responsibility away from the ward staff to a doctor who may know nothing at all about the patient. If you're going to call me, have a legitimate question you need me to answer.
Ghost-Bleep: How many times have you called back immediately and then no one answers? What is the acceptable number of rings before you give up? If you're going to bleep someone, please wait by the phone or be within an immediate 5 second radius! I haven't got time to be waiting for you.
Prank-bleep: "Hi, you're the surgeon, do you cover [insert alternate specialty here]". Just because I'm a surgeon, it does not mean I cover all the surgical specialties! If you don't know who to call, ask a colleague or switchboard first.
Ping-pong-bleep: If you're going to call me to refer a patient, please have all the information to hand, including basic demographics, relevant history and obs. It's just courtesy. If you have to put down the phone to run back and forth somewhere else to answer every question I ask, I will hang up.
Repeat-bleep; Please don't bleep me to ask a question that someone else on your ward/department has already bleeped to ask me. It is a waste of both yours and my time with constant repetition.
The Echo-bleep - Some people feel it necessary to bleep multiple times successively within a space of 30 seconds. Why? If anything, I'm less likely to respond to your rudeness.
I admit, I don't see any feasible solution to overcome these categories. Common sense and lack of team communication will continue to render pointless bleeps. Perhaps we still need to consider a smartphone messaging system as in my Part 1 post.
