Saturday’s theme: Call Matters

Saturday’s theme will be call matters.

This will be a combination of call stories, why call is important, and call obligations. Tonight’s will be money matters.

Call is important.

It allows a department to not be staffed 24/7.

This saves the hospital money.

It also allows the department to bring in extra people, in case they do work 24/7 and an emergency comes in.

It allows for flexibility in staffing.

It can be costly, though.

Usually the person on call is paid a set dollar amount per hour while they are on call, for the disturbance of their life and the necessity of being 30 minutes away from the hospital at all times. My current call pays is $3 per hour. Plus call-back pay, which is roughly time and a half, if I am called in. This is an hourly rate.

I get my call pay and so does the scrub on call.

The anesthesia team is in-house regardless if there are any cases.

Today, I am on call. For 24 hours.

I went in at 0650 to prepare for an 0800 case. This allows me to pick the case, to prepare the room, to get the patient, and to do the prep for the patient.

I thought I was going to be home by 0900.

LOL.

No.

Four cases later: a cysto emergency, a facial laceration, a broken bone, and an APPY. I was home by 1630.

For some people the call-back pay doesn’t make up for the disruption in their weekend.

I am not most people.