new pen reviews!

OK, fuck the boards, let's talk about something really important now. Let's talk about pens.

I placed an order for some new pens a few weeks ago (and then tweeted abundantly about it). And now I will talk about it some more, because that horse isn't quite dead yet. Anyway, these are special pens! SPECIAL JAPANESE PENS! From the island of Japan! Where all cute things originate!

Let us begin. First let me describe my pen needs. Like any medical person, I use my pen a lot. Now that I'm not a Peds resident anymore, I don't have quite the need that I once did to have intricate pages of checklists and patient flow charts, nor did I need a pen that would enable me to write a full set of metabolic lab results in the 0.5 inch margin alongside a patient's progress note, but hey, I still have pen needs. Mostly I write consult notes, keep anesthesia records, and sign my name one million times a day. I do like a good fine-tipped pen for the anesthesia records--I don't know if you've ever seen one, but for those of us who don't have computerized records (I did in my residency, but at my current hospital we still do hand charting) we do have to cram in quite a bit if information in a very small amount of space.




Other concerns: I wanted a pen that would make my writing look neat--I find that the wider the point, the more sloppy my writing tends to become. I wanted a pen with a good ink supply that didn't smear. And I wanted to find a pen in a color that other people didn't have. The reason for this is not just because I GOTTA BE ME! but because sometimes if I'm reading over an anesthesia consult note that someone else has written, I like to go through it and circle the important things so that they jump out at me, or add little clarifying notes of my own. When my pen is a slightly different color, I can see my own additions better, and it reminds me to do stuff (or not to do stuff, as the case may be).

So with this in mind, I got three types of pens. First was the Pilot Hi-Tec-C Gel Ink Pen with the 0.4 mm tip. The reason I got this pen, even though I've never seen it before or tried it in person, is that the pen enthusiasts of the world (and once you start to dig into this, you will find them all over the internet) swear that this is the world's greatest pen. I got a few in the blue-black color, because everyone else at work already has either a plain black or a plain blue pen, and if I got any of these other colors, people might start worrying that I was going to start signing my notes Mrs. Justin Beiber, MD. I don't think a pink pen flies in the hospital.




Up until now I've been a big fan of the Pilot Precise V5 RT, which is an excellent pen except that sometimes the ink is a little heavy so it can bleed and smear a little, and that occasionally after you drop it, it'll just be real scratchy and skippy for the rest of its natural life, even if it still does have a full ink barrel. So I knew I liked the feel of a needle tip pen. So tiny! So precise! And indeed, the Pilot Hi-Tec-C was all of these things.




Two issues I had with this pen. First of all was that, after using it for a full day at work, I began to realize why I had been using retractible pens all along. Because dealing with a pen cap is a pain in my ass. I know they have a retractible version of the Hi-Tec-C, but from all my research (and yes, there was research involved) it looks like the pen barrel was much thinner in the retractible version, thus making it hard to hold, and the ink supply was smaller. As it was, my other beef with the Hi-Tec-C is that it wasn't very comfortable to write with. I hold my pen weird (it's certainly not a ladylike grip, more of a ham-fisted grip that my dad was on my case endlessly about until he finally gave up) and if my pen barrels are too thin, I get hand cramps. Also the Hi-Tec-C did not have a padded grip, which I didn't like. It had these hard plastic ridges where you held the pen, which I guess is good for traction or whatever, but in terms of comfort, not my cup of tea. (I am also aware that they have the Hi-Tec-C with the rubber grip, but they only make those in black, blue and red.) I tried to put on my own rubber grip--you know, those ones that they sell at Staples for kids to put on their pencils--but then I ran into the problem of the damn pen cap again, in that it wouldn't fit on with the rubber grip in place. So the Pilot Hi-Tec-C is a good pen, lays down a great line, and the blue-black ink is a classy joint. However, maybe better for home than for work, unless you have a desk job and don't mind dealing with a pen cap from time to time.

Second pen was this: the Uni-ball Signo RT UM-138 Gel Pen with a 0.38 mm tip. I got this in blue-black and lavendar black.





Now I know that you're going to see that purple pen and say WHAT THE HELL, WHAT ABOUT ALL THAT STUFF THAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT MRS. JUSTIN BEIBER, YOU GOT A PURPLE PEN FOR WORK? Hold on there, pen friends. It's not purple. It's lavender-black. The difference, which, I hope to illustrate here:




So there. The purple is even less obvious if you don't have the actual purple pen barrel next to it--I think the external cue makes the ink look more purply than it really is. I actually polled about five nurses, showing them an anesthesia record and a few notes that I wrote without showing them the pen, asking them what color they thought the ink was. Every one of them said either "black" or "dark blue." So it really doesn't look that purple, and it really is a nice pen. Fine point, smooth writing, beautiful lush line, not blobby, not bleedy, and above all, retractible.

Plus, it's not really that expensive, running you $1.50 per pen. I mean, yes, it's more expensive than a giant box of Bic ballpoints, but this is not your general distribution pen, this is your pen, the one you label with your name, the one you keep in your breast pocket and make sure no one steals. Both the blue-black and the lavender-black are fantastic colors, and after I let Joe try one, he insisted that I order him a box of his own, so see, just as much of a hit with the fellas as with the ladies.

(All photos and pens courtesy of Jet Pens, which is probably a really dangerous site if you have an Asian office supply fetish and have some time to waste.)