The Tell-Tale Beeper

That call to danger, like a doctor's beeper shocking the orderly solitude and safety of the squash court.

–John Irving, Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

The institution of marriage has been my pleasure for 17 years, but the beeper has been my mistress longer. I have experienced, even benefited from, the evolution of the beeper during those years. The introduction of the cell phone further enhanced my life, allowing me to stay on the sidelines of a little league soccer game while I answered a page instead of driving around to find a pay phone hungry for my quarters.

Older physicians may remember many evenings and weekends tethered to their home, waiting by the phone to be summoned to the emergency room. The answering service emerged from that archaic approach but necessitated an hourly call to check for messages. Who could forget, while in the hospital, the constant background drone of the overhead page, driving doctors, nurses, and patients alike to distraction? Yes, it must be conceded that the beeper was an improvement. But it is also a nemesis. The chirp of my beeper is a repeated intrusion into my sleep, patient encounters, even a run in the park. If the housestaff who were on-call last night at the university hospital where I work were to assemble the following morning, it is doubtful they would utter one kind word about the beeper or its inventor. None of the 30 or so house officers gathered, collectively representing perhaps 20 hours of sleep and 600 pages, would be in any mood to praise the pager.

My relationship with the beeper began as an intern. The first one issued to me was 4 inches long, rectangular and narrow, sleek in appearance but a real Motorola motor mouth. By luck of the draw, I …