Doctors' Website Making the Rounds

StopPagingMe.com, A website for resident doctors provides an interesting peep hole into the minds of our country's young physicians. We just try to find articles and issues that are interesting to young doctors. Whether that means a serious editorial piece or a story about a man whose testicles were locked in a padlock for two weeks is not important. Both have their own merit."

(PRWEB) August 19, 2005 -- A new website has been making the rounds among young doctors and medical students. The website, brashly dubbed www.StopPagingMe.com, bills itself as The Online Housestaff Community.

Since 2002, Jordan Safirstein, M.D. and his team have worked to create the equivalent of The Daily Show for young physicians. We came up with the site one night while we were on-call." said Safirstein, the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of StopPagingMe.com. We were sitting around at 4 am discussing how all the other interns and residents we knew were probably doing the exact same thing, but in different hospitals and cities. We wanted to find a way to connect them. Online there were hundreds of medical websites, but few were targeted for the med student or resident. We wanted to give them a place on the Internet that was just theirs; a place where they could relate to the content and share in similar experiences."

So Safirstein recruited a few of his physician friends, including Senior Editor, Andrew Wolf, and his brother-in-law Marshall Bergmann, and built the website using very little money and a lot of long hours. It was a great idea but we all had demanding jobs and none of us were willing to sink a lot of money into the site - especially since none of us had any cash," admitted Wolf.

Witty and sometimes unabashedly honest, the site appeals to captive medical students and house staffers whose brutal overnight on-call schedules are punctuated by brief stretches of inactivity. The site's content has proven to be the perfect elixir to pass time and a cultish following began.

Most of the original content was provided by Safirstein, a tireless writer, who used his overnights calls to pen the still popular Top 5 Lists. Among the memorable topics are On-Call Foods", Medical Student Lies", and Worst Pages". One humorous feature is the selection of vintage video games - perfect for the brief mindless between call break.

In an environment where Pharmaceutical companies, head hunters, and financial advisors already compete for the attention of our country's young physicians, StopPagingMe.com, with over 3,000 members, is in a good position to make a profit. So how much money have Safirstein and company made from their brainchild? None. Not to sound cheesy, it was never about making money. It was about connecting housestaff and making their lives a little better. We wanted to make them feel like part of a bigger group- a team. That was our goal."

Informative, cynical, humorous, but sincere, the website has expanded to include advice columns and forums for issues that young physicians face during their residencies. We all have bad hours, we all take these massive tests that determine our futures, and more than 90% of us face loans exceeding $100,000. All this while trying to have a social life, find a spouse, and start a family. It's a lot less glamorous than on TV."

While Safirstein and colleagues state that the website has a long way to go, it provides an interesting peep hole into the minds of our country's young physicians.

We just try to find articles and issues that are interesting to young doctors. Whether that means a serious editorial piece on the validity of fibromyalgia or a story about a man whose testicles were locked in a padlock for two weeks is not important. Both have their own merit."

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