(The Nation):

Doctors advised not to use cellphones when dealing with patients.

The advice has come from Doctors Chrisita Powlett and Nesha Gibbons, as a result of their research paper entitled Cellphone Usage Amongst Doctors At The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The paper won first prize, a monetary donation from the School of Clinical Medicine and Research, at the Sixth Annual Professor E.R. Walrond Scientific Symposium, held at the QEH.

Noting that some doctors had two or three cellphones, Powlett and Gibbons said they had interviewed about 53 per cent of the doctors at the hospital.

High Dependency Areas

Part of their study dealt with the Use Of Cellphones In High Dependency Areas, including the Recovery Room and the Intensive Care Unit where there are a lot of monitors.

"Our staff in those areas do not use their cellphones," said Powlett, the winner of this year's Merck Sharpe Dohme Award For Medicine. She noted, however, that studies had shown that once you used your cellphone more than one metre away from that equipment, the interference was less.

"For instance," she added, "there are some cellphones that would cause interference when you hear them ring. But we have found that amongst our staff the interference is minimal and that is why we ask people not to use their cellphones within certain areas of the hospital because we would not want anything adverse to happen. They can interfere with the monitors."

Swabs taken

Gibbons, who received this year's Lionel Stuart Prize for Best In Surgery, said swabs were taken from sides, earpieces and number pads on the phones.

"We found that less than 50 per cent of the phones had micro organisms on them but nothing harmful," she said.

The pair's main recommendations for doctors are: good hygiene, hand washing, wiping your phone every now and then with alcohol, and not answering the phone when dealing with a patient.

The research idea, said Powlett and Gibbons, came from Dr. Ramesh Jonnalagadda.