Joey M.D.

I’ve given my viewpoints regarding the doctor’s cell phone as a doctor and as a patient.  It’s really the doctor’s prerogative whether or not to give out the cellphone number, but if he/she does, do use the info wisely.

• Please don’t call at unholy hours of the night for non-emergencies. Of course, doctors and patients do have different views on what an emergency is, but getting advise for what’s the best vitamin supplement is definitely NOT an emergency and is best texted during working hours.
• Please don’t expect a doctor to ALWAYS text or call back immediately. He/she might be attending to another patient, or doing surgery.  If you are the patient he/she is attending to at the moment, you really won’t appreciate it if your doctor replies to text messages while he’s supposed to be focusing on you, won’t you?  Or, like any other person, it might be inconvenient to reply immediately — he/she may be driving, or answering the call of nature, or in the shower, or even doing his/her darnedest to soothe his/her crying baby.
• If it really looks like an emergency, bring patient to the emergency room. You may text your doctor to inform him/her that you’re on your way to the ER (or you can just leave the informing to the ER doctors, who will update your doctor with the workups).  Don’t expect the doctor to be able to manage the patient through the phone.  Besides the hospital is better equipped to handle emergencies and there are ER doctors on standby who can see and manage the patient’s case immediately, even before your regular doctor reaches the hospital.
• Don’t assume that the doctor memorized everything there is to know about your case.  Try as we might, we can’t memorize every small detail about our patient’s cases.  If the patient is someone we see a lot of times, we have a pretty good idea but don’t expect us to remember the EXACT details.  If we just saw you once a long time ago, we probably have to look at our charts again.  So, there, it’s still best to go to the clinic.
• Identify yourself. There is a limit to cellphone memory and don’t assume that you are there (you might be, but again you might not).
• Don’t consult on the phone! I know people think this saves time and money, but there is really no substitute for actually seeing the patient.  Verbal descriptions are vague and we still NEED to see the problem to give a good assessment of your case.  The phone is for general advise only, not for the particular individual case.

Here in the Philippines, it is now a trend for doctors to give out their cellphone numbers.  Some patients would feel bad if the doctors don’t give out their cell numbers.  So now, most doctors do.  But please use phone the right way.