Cell or no cell pt 1

Early on in one’s career as an interventionalist, one must make important decision: do I give out my cell phone number to patients?

I’m sure there are some pretty strong opinions on this. Much depends on where you practice, the patient population, the kinds of diseases you’re treating, your practice setting, just to name a few. In other words, I don’t think there’s a simple binary solution to this decision. I decided over the course of several years to share my phone number. Let me explain my rationale.

Back in late 90s/early 2000s when I was in private practice in Decatur Illinois, I worked in a small but busy 225 bed hospital. The greater Decatur area had a population of about 100,000 (fun fact: Decatur is home to Archers Daniel Midland (ADM), the massive multinational food processing company. At the time, unless my recollection is incorrect, ADM was the world’s largest producer of high fructose corn syrup) which felt like a small town to me: everyone seemed to know everyone else in Decatur. If someone needed to get a hold of me, it wasn’t hard to make a few phone calls and you’d reach me at home. It was pretty idyllic in a Marcus Welby MD-kind of way. The dry cleaner lady always called me Dr. Ryu (unclear how she knew I was a doctor) and the post office would open up after hours if they were holding a package for me (yes, way).

My wife and I were thrilled to transition (back) to Northwestern in 2005. Even though I had practiced at NU before, it was a little bit of a transition; I was used to small town living- everyone knew me and could find me. That certainly wasn’t going to happen in the greater Chicagoland area. Overnight, I had become the proverbial needle in a haystack (but don’t get me wrong, I actually liked becoming more anonymous at that point). 

It was around that time that I started giving out my cell phone number to patients and instructing them to call if they had questions or concerns. I didn’t give it to everyone- I tended to give it to patients who I thought were really engaged in their care, especially those had complex medical problems, strong support systems, and the capacity to understand their medical situations.

Let me stop here for a minute and confess that I’ve reflected on that last sentence a bit over the past few years. I have wondered whether I have been discriminatory in selecting which patients get my cell phone number. Well, let me phrase it another way: I HAVE been discriminatory, the real question is how badly. I’ve thought about actually looking at the demographics (see below) but I can’t bring myself to do it. I guess this is one of those take home points for you to ponder.

When I got to Colorado in 2014, I continued to distribute my cell phone number (selectively, as above) to a somewhat wider group of patients: most patients that I see in clinic, for instance. And here’s the thing you’ve probably been waiting for: over the past 10 years, I have not had a single patient abuse the contact information that I provide. Not a single one. In fact, the vast majority of patients never use it to call, text, etc. I’d estimate that maybe 5-10% have ever used my contact information and it was always for a good reason.

The cornerstone of a successful doctor-patient relationship is trust. Patients need to trust that I will always act in their best interest, with prudence and good judgment. I think a small but meaningful gesture is to trust a patient with my personal phone number. Most patients are surprised and very grateful when I hand them my business card with my cell number hand written on the back. It is such a small act, but it means a lot to them.