Texting Causes Botched Surgical Procedures

In case there was any doubt in your mind, I Hate Texting.

And while the little experiment we’re conducting at hatetexting.com hasn’t changed (it still looks like 1996 over there), neither has the point: way too often texting, useful though it can be, is still an excuse for being rude masquerading as a tool.

And now we have a new example of just how much trouble texting can cause. And it comes from the medical world.

You’d think these educated people, these men and women of science, would know better. They’ve seen the studies proving that texting causes car crashes. They’ve laughed at cocktail parties about people who text during sex. Some of them might even be aware of the broad social shifts and (negative, says me) social changes that texting has helped bring about.

But these tools have become distractions. And it’s bad. Because now, Doctors are texting during surgery.

This isn’t just a social and safety conversation, of course, it’s about business change, too. Doctors, like most people, fall into patterns brought about by things they don’t understand. And business change needs to be managed. I remember when I started using my Droid being accused by my girlfriend of being obsessed. And I was — with understanding the darned thing. Once I had that hurdle cleared the Droid became merely the tool computers are supposed to be. And my female counterpart hasn’t accused me of the same this this week as I’ve started using a Galaxy Nexus.

For the … oh I don’t don’t, but it’s a big number … time, please stop texting as a form of multi-tasking. It’s a bad idea; you don’t gain more time, and you aren’t more productive; you just do a bad job at multiple things.

Now excuse me. I have to go have sex with my SmartPhone.