Call me old fashioned, however, I feel that when performing highly skilled and important tasks, such as flying an airplane or taking care of patients in a hospital, we should minimize distractions to the fullest extent possible. "Multi-tasking" is not the way to go.I was less than pleased with a resident the other day who was running Pokemon Go on his smart phone in the ICU. I noticed this when giving him directions on an infectious disease consult.
Here is a recent article on the dangers of smartphones in the ICUs, distractibility is one of them. More recently, Massachusetts General Hospital sent out a mass mail requesting that staff refrain from playing this game while in the hospital, summarized in this Forbes article (Thanks to Dr. Mike Stevens for forwarding it to me).
We need to be present and attentive when caring for patients.
Pokemon Go, and other smartphone games, have no business in a patient care setting.
