{"id":2203,"date":"2010-08-02T12:55:40","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T16:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?p=2203"},"modified":"2011-07-19T17:45:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:45:29","slug":"when-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2010\/08\/02\/when-in-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"When in Rome…"},"content":{"rendered":"

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from Dr. John M<\/a>, a blog by private-practice electrophysiologist and CardioExchange member, Dr. John Mandrola<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the quiet of the exam room, the patient’s cell phone obnoxiously chimes to life.<\/p>\n

“Hold on a minute Doc, I’ve been expecting this text.”<\/em><\/p>\n

You think, but dare not say,\u00a0“You are kidding me, right?”<\/p>\n

This scenario is just one of technology’s canker sores.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, the new world of always-on communication has irreversibly redefined the rules of human interaction \u2014 for the worse, many have argued. The\u00a0actual person-to-person phone call has become so yesterday. \u00a0This is not a judgment, just a matter of factuality.<\/p>\n

The young of years get this. They have never known a TV with knobs or a rotary phone.\u00a0While the middle-aged click with trepidation, and the aged do not click at all, the young click away fearlessly. \u00a0It is their medium.\u00a0Texting a youngster seems to bring out their inner sweetness.\u00a0\u00a0It is their language.<\/p>\n

Like me, many of my peers in the medical world are equally enamored with this new communication realm.<\/p>\n

And so it was recently when I tip-toed into the new world of\u00a0“e-communication.” It was a risk.<\/p>\n

Call me old-school if you will, but I still like to communicate with referring doctors. \u00a0Not just because it is right and respectful to do so, but it would be disingenuous to deny the tacit component of bragging. \u00a0“This curing with burning thing is so nifty, others would surely want to know,” is how most electrophysiologists roll.<\/p>\n

The old way to communicate was to pull a busy referring doctor out of a room and speak over the phone.<\/p>\n

A new way \u2014 which occurred to me spontaneously in a eureka-like moment \u2014 is to snap a photo of a photo, and send it along with the text message: \u00a0“Mr ***** had a successful ablation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Termination of tachycardia is still so sweet!<\/em><\/p>\n

Is the referring doctor taken aback by this new form of peer-to-peer communication? \u00a0You be the judge from his text message response…<\/p>\n

“BEAUTIFUL! Not sure which of us is the sicker: you for sending that image, or me for enlarging it and looking closely at it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Not all that beeps and interrupts is rude and impersonal.<\/p>\n

It is a new world. \u00a0Might as well join in.<\/p>\n

Huge grin!<\/p>\n

JMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from Dr. John M, a blog by private-practice electrophysiologist and CardioExchange member, Dr. John Mandrola. In the quiet of the exam room, the patient’s cell phone obnoxiously chimes to life. “Hold on a minute Doc, I’ve been expecting this text.” You think, but dare not say,\u00a0“You are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[238,235,237,236],"class_list":["post-2203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electrophysiology","category-general","tag-ablation","tag-patients","tag-tachycardia","tag-texting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}