6 ms·

In the late 1990s, my dad attended night classes with other adult learners to earn his MBA. Everywhere he went during those years, my dad had a beeper clipped t

by mttpgn 2y ago

In the late 1990s, my dad attended night classes with other adult learners to earn his MBA. Everywhere he went during those years, my dad had a beeper clipped to his belt for an on-call hospital rotation. During his first week of class, my dad's beeper loudly went off during the middle of the lecture. As my dad scrambled out of the lecture hall to call the number on the little screen, the professor accurately guessed: "You're a doctor, aren't you?"

mongol 2y ago
That is funny, in a way that I feel hard to explain. Something about it being a simpler, more innocent time?
- amputect 2y ago
  I love that too. You definitely don't see as many of them these days. By 2006 they were kind of a punchline (cf the TV series "30 Rock" and their portrayal as a goofy dead-end tech for weirdos, sold by Dennis Duffy). This might or might not be an interesting digression (apologies if it's the latter!) but many medical professionals still carry beepers or pagers of some kind. Not like "an app on their phone that will ring your phone at you even through Do-Not-Disturb" (I have one of those), but something that is very recognizably an old school beeper. They often have a SIM card in them, and the newer ones sometimes have wifi as well for redundancy. My wife is a nurse at a cancer treatment center, she coordinates care for extremely sick people who are getting very specialized treatments and she's kind of the front-line person for dealing with them and project managing emergency situations, so she and all the doctors she work with carry them. I thought it was actually pretty cool :) I asked her about it once, and apparently the hospital system looked at the more modern app-based paging stuff and decided that while it was cheaper, the reliability hit wasn't worth it to them. The physical hardware for these things is outrageously sturdy, they have a lifespan of like a decade, they're extremely easy to replace. Sure, your wifi might be out or your telephony might be down, but that's a problem your app has to deal with too. Apps are easier to provision, but it's an extra layer of stuff that can go wrong (your phone is getting an update or out of battery, you left it in your car because you were playing music with it and forgot to take it out of the console, it got stolen because phones are recognizably valuable) so they just stuck with the old familiar form factor that does one thing, extremely reliably. This isn't a criticism of the app-based paging systems or anything; they're quite reliable in my experience. I just thought it was a neat additional data point about the considerations that go in to the thought process about provisioning an alarm for your employees when the alarm almost always means either "I have a time-sensitive question about a patient's ongoing medical emergency" or "your patient is about to die".
  - op00to 2y ago
    Hospitals in my area of the US still use POCSAG pagers, totally unencrypted. They do mention patient information, but I guess the obscurity makes it ok.
    - chimeracoder 2y ago
      > Hospitals in my area of the US still use POCSAG pagers, totally unencrypted. They do mention patient information, but I guess the obscurity makes it ok. Nope, the obscurity doesn't make it okay. If it takes place over the phone lines, it is arguably exempt from encryption requirements under HIPAA (much like a fax). Otherwise, they're just turning a blind eye and hoping nobody notices (which is surprisingly common when it comes to HIPAA). The good news (for them, not for patients) is that, even if they get caught, the maximum fine is $2 million per calendar year per category of violation, so if they're flush enough they don't even need to bother being compliant in this area.
      - fein 2y ago
        It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered.
        chimeracoder 2y ago
        > It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered. I'm not familiar with this particular technology, which is why I didn't make a definitive claim in my previous comment. But I am quite intimately familiar with HIPAA and related regulations, and I am extremely skeptical of the third sentence you wrote.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  > Something about it being a simpler, more innocent time? Unfortunately, we will probably think the same about 2024 in thirty years...
  - mongol 2y ago
    Certainly. Something with AI will make this all seem like the best of times.
throwawayForMe2 2y ago
As an “enterprise” developer in the 80’s, we all had beepers to go along with our suits and ties. People often thought we must be doctors, but we were just corporate mainframe developers.
486sx33 2y ago
Definitely reminds me of “Dr. Beeper” in Caddyshack
themadturk 2y ago
A law firm I worked for in the mid-90s started a helpdesk rotation with five or six of us taking shift with a single beeper. The only real complain was from the three women on the team, who had no belts or pockets to hang the device from (skirts and dresses were mandatory for female employees at the time, and women's clothes rarely have pockets or belts).
dogmatism 2y ago
A lot of doctors still prefer to carry beepers
- shermozle 2y ago
  More to do with the fact a pager will reach places a phone won't. Operating theatres are often in the basement or the middle of the building where mobile signals don't reach but pager signals do. They're super high power and lower frequency so they penetrate further.
  - dhosek 2y ago
    Not entirely: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219737658/why-do-doctors-still-use-pagers https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219737658/why-do-doctors-sti...
  - kanbara 2y ago
    ah yes, the beeper, more high power than the top end 5g UC flagship phones. because that makes so much sense
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > because that makes so much sense I detect sarcasm, but yes, it does. The history of phone tech is "can we get more done with less joules?", while a pager is "you have one job". Even when a pager is implemented on top of normal cellular networks like 3/4/5G, it's still better because there's nothing else on the system to drain the battery. But it doesn't need to be on those systems at all, it can be an even less 'smart' radio receiver such as POCSAG system, on its own frequency, chosen specifically for getting though concrete etc., and disregarding any concerns about bandwidth because 1.2 kb/s is probably more than it needs.
    - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
      It actually makes a lot of sense. A lot of pagers operate on lower frequencies (~100 mhz instead of 400 or 700) that can penetrate way deeper than the higher frequencies used by modern phones. Plus the data rate is substantially lower, which acts in the favor of getting reception. So yeah it makes a ton of sense. These are very different devices operating using different frequencies and protocols.

by mttpgn 2y ago

mongol 2y ago

That is funny, in a way that I feel hard to explain. Something about it being a simpler, more innocent time?

amputect 2y ago
I love that too. You definitely don't see as many of them these days. By 2006 they were kind of a punchline (cf the TV series "30 Rock" and their portrayal as a goofy dead-end tech for weirdos, sold by Dennis Duffy). This might or might not be an interesting digression (apologies if it's the latter!) but many medical professionals still carry beepers or pagers of some kind. Not like "an app on their phone that will ring your phone at you even through Do-Not-Disturb" (I have one of those), but something that is very recognizably an old school beeper. They often have a SIM card in them, and the newer ones sometimes have wifi as well for redundancy. My wife is a nurse at a cancer treatment center, she coordinates care for extremely sick people who are getting very specialized treatments and she's kind of the front-line person for dealing with them and project managing emergency situations, so she and all the doctors she work with carry them. I thought it was actually pretty cool :) I asked her about it once, and apparently the hospital system looked at the more modern app-based paging stuff and decided that while it was cheaper, the reliability hit wasn't worth it to them. The physical hardware for these things is outrageously sturdy, they have a lifespan of like a decade, they're extremely easy to replace. Sure, your wifi might be out or your telephony might be down, but that's a problem your app has to deal with too. Apps are easier to provision, but it's an extra layer of stuff that can go wrong (your phone is getting an update or out of battery, you left it in your car because you were playing music with it and forgot to take it out of the console, it got stolen because phones are recognizably valuable) so they just stuck with the old familiar form factor that does one thing, extremely reliably. This isn't a criticism of the app-based paging systems or anything; they're quite reliable in my experience. I just thought it was a neat additional data point about the considerations that go in to the thought process about provisioning an alarm for your employees when the alarm almost always means either "I have a time-sensitive question about a patient's ongoing medical emergency" or "your patient is about to die".
- op00to 2y ago
  Hospitals in my area of the US still use POCSAG pagers, totally unencrypted. They do mention patient information, but I guess the obscurity makes it ok.
  - chimeracoder 2y ago
    > Hospitals in my area of the US still use POCSAG pagers, totally unencrypted. They do mention patient information, but I guess the obscurity makes it ok. Nope, the obscurity doesn't make it okay. If it takes place over the phone lines, it is arguably exempt from encryption requirements under HIPAA (much like a fax). Otherwise, they're just turning a blind eye and hoping nobody notices (which is surprisingly common when it comes to HIPAA). The good news (for them, not for patients) is that, even if they get caught, the maximum fine is $2 million per calendar year per category of violation, so if they're flush enough they don't even need to bother being compliant in this area.
    - fein 2y ago
      It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered.
      - chimeracoder 2y ago
        > It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered. I'm not familiar with this particular technology, which is why I didn't make a definitive claim in my previous comment. But I am quite intimately familiar with HIPAA and related regulations, and I am extremely skeptical of the third sentence you wrote.
rrr_oh_man 2y ago
> Something about it being a simpler, more innocent time? Unfortunately, we will probably think the same about 2024 in thirty years...
- mongol 2y ago
  Certainly. Something with AI will make this all seem like the best of times.

throwawayForMe2 2y ago

As an “enterprise” developer in the 80’s, we all had beepers to go along with our suits and ties. People often thought we must be doctors, but we were just corporate mainframe developers.

486sx33 2y ago

Definitely reminds me of “Dr. Beeper” in Caddyshack

themadturk 2y ago

A law firm I worked for in the mid-90s started a helpdesk rotation with five or six of us taking shift with a single beeper. The only real complain was from the three women on the team, who had no belts or pockets to hang the device from (skirts and dresses were mandatory for female employees at the time, and women's clothes rarely have pockets or belts).

dogmatism 2y ago

A lot of doctors still prefer to carry beepers

shermozle 2y ago
More to do with the fact a pager will reach places a phone won't. Operating theatres are often in the basement or the middle of the building where mobile signals don't reach but pager signals do. They're super high power and lower frequency so they penetrate further.
- dhosek 2y ago
  Not entirely: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219737658/why-do-doctors-still-use-pagers https://www.npr.org/2023/12/15/1219737658/why-do-doctors-sti...
- kanbara 2y ago
  ah yes, the beeper, more high power than the top end 5g UC flagship phones. because that makes so much sense
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > because that makes so much sense I detect sarcasm, but yes, it does. The history of phone tech is "can we get more done with less joules?", while a pager is "you have one job". Even when a pager is implemented on top of normal cellular networks like 3/4/5G, it's still better because there's nothing else on the system to drain the battery. But it doesn't need to be on those systems at all, it can be an even less 'smart' radio receiver such as POCSAG system, on its own frequency, chosen specifically for getting though concrete etc., and disregarding any concerns about bandwidth because 1.2 kb/s is probably more than it needs.
  - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
    It actually makes a lot of sense. A lot of pagers operate on lower frequencies (~100 mhz instead of 400 or 700) that can penetrate way deeper than the higher frequencies used by modern phones. Plus the data rate is substantially lower, which acts in the favor of getting reception. So yeah it makes a ton of sense. These are very different devices operating using different frequencies and protocols.