Thirty-Five Years Ago This Weekend
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When I worked at the university, call wasn't all that frequent, about 1 in 10 nights. The guy who made out the call schedule just put the names of everyone into a computer, and it spit the names out, every tenth (or so) night. If you had a vacation/birthday/graduation coming up and you were scheduled to be on call, it was your responsibility to trade out of that day with someone who was available. Since it was a large department, that was not a problem. We handled religious holidays in a similar fashion - the Christians worked on the Jewish holidays, and the Jews worked Christmas and Easter.
The only difference was weekends. Because the place was smaller then, "only" 26 ORs, weekends were usually not all that busy. You could expect to spend Saturday morning doing "semi-elective" stuff and then the urgent, can't-wait-until Monday stuff. So, we took call for a weekend at a time, Saturday AND Sunday. 7AM to 7AM.
Except holidays.
So, on a three-day weekend, like Memorial Day, you'd be on call for all three days. Saturday AM to Tuesday AM.
I was on call Memorial Day weekend that year. I spent 56 out of 72 hours in the hospital.
Call is the killer, and you don't realize how bad it is until you stop doing it.
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@Axtremus said in Thirty-Five Years Ago This Weekend:
Have you since figured out a better system?
No. When I left, our practice was smaller (7 people available any given time) and weekends were just like any other day. We took call 7-7.
I have no idea of how call works at the U now. Next time I talk with one of the gas-passers there I'll ask.
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It's the same in the small places. Hasn't changed.
Last weekend I worked, the on-call OR crew was getting there about 6AM for a bowl resection and a gallbladder. They finished both cases and had been gone no more than an hour when a MVA hit the ED. Don't know if they got called out that night, but wouldn't be surprised.
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And the problem with being on-call, is you have no life. The phone goes off and you drop whatever you're doing...Birthday party for a child, Little League game, whatever. Not to mention, you have to be within a certain distance from the facility.
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And the problem with being on-call, is you have no life. The phone goes off and you drop whatever you're doing...Birthday party for a child, Little League game, whatever. Not to mention, you have to be within a certain distance from the facility.
@Jolly said in Thirty-Five Years Ago This Weekend:
And the problem with being on-call, is you have no life.
It really depends on the practice.
At the university, I knew that I'd be on call every 10th night or so. I knew I could not plan anything for those days/weekends. It was really not that bad, other than the overwhelming, "I-think-I'm-going-to-puke-because-I'm-so-tired" fatigue that came with it. But, we had the day "off" afterward to recover. It sorta worked.
However, in a small group, the dynamic really changes. Our responsibility to the hospital was that we had one guy available 24/7 for anything that came along: surgery, OB, intubation in the ER...whatever. However, if that guy was busy, we had a backup who could come in on 15 minutes' notice for OB etc. The 2nd, backup, guy was in the rotation before he was on call. IOW, if you're on call, you're on 2nd call the day before. Additionally, if #1 and #2 were busy, we had #3 available until 7PM weeknights, and 3PM weekends.
We were committed to 2 ORs on Saturdays for "semi-elective" stuff - a fractured hip, etc. That meant we needed a 3rd person available on Saturday AM to cover OB. That fell to the person who was on call on the previous night - Friday.
So, here's a representative schedule from 7 years ago. Doctor "S" is highlighted, with the 1st call responsibility in red, 2nd call - 15 minute availability - in blue, and 3rd call -15 minute availability until 7 PM - in green.
You can see that you have some kind of availability for 16 of the 30 days, and 24-hour, within 15 minute availability, for 12 days.
Oh, the week of the 11th? That's working at the kidney stone center. 6 day week, with as many as 10-12 cases per day.
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i took night call until about five years ago
hated it -
Speaking of this weekend, it was 7 years ago this weekend when Harambe paid the ultimate price for his inside knowledge about the Clintons…
