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.,including the Recovery Roomand theIntensive Care Unitwhere 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."
The pair's main recommendation for doctors is: good hygiene – hand washing, wiping your phone every now and then with alcohol, and not answering the phone when dealing with a patient.
"It was during our fourth year as medical students when Dr Ramesh approached us about conducting the study. The research ideas had seemed simple, but it was a procedure before we sprang into action during our fifth year," said Powlett.
Gibbons elaborated: "We had to get the questionnaires ready, work out how we were going to conduct the study and then get it approved by the Ethics Committee." The Ethics Committee is made up of staff of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the School of Clinical Medicine and Research.
When everything was in place, the filling out of the questionnaires and swabbing of the cellphones with help from microbiologist Dr Delores Lewis started. Then getting back the questionnaires from the doctors and medical students took about two months to complete, said Powlett. "The research was challenging in that you had to balance your work and ward rounds," she added.
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