After a year and a half our BES server has been rock solid. Assuming the user is in an area with reception, the longest we've waited for a message is 2 minutes. Most are delivered in 2-5 seconds, with <0.05% taking longer than 30 seconds. I don't believe we've ever "lost" any messages either. We have a simple 12 user BES and have been running it for a year and a half.
And if the person is in a place that is out of data coverage (sometimes when traveling)
There is a <confirm> tag you can put in front of the subject line and you'll receive a delivery confirmation / return recept notice. You do not need a BlackBerry to do this, any email client can send this to a BB. This should work well for your Doctors. At least if you don't get the return receipt in less than a couple minutes, you know to follow-up with a numeric page (to either the BB or a separate pager).
One of the great things too about the Bb, is how they "sip" data. If you have something like T-Mobile, which only has coverage on highways and in metropolian areas, once you move into range, the BB will download all of the email it missed (up to 7 days, AFAIK), and for normal amounts of messages this only takes 15-30 seconds. And it will do so automatically even with the device in your pocket.
I think they are great, even given the limitations of the handhelds and network.
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