When a doctor (specifically a pediatrician) is "on call", what exactly do they have to do? How often and at what hours are pediatricians on call (I know it ranges depending on how many clients and all...)?
2007-07-17 07:11:45 · 12 answers · asked by me 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Medicine
Also, when you are on call, do you just give answers over the phone or do you actually have to go somewhere?
2007-07-17 07:37:23 · update #1
On call hours vary from job to job.
What "on call" means is that you are responsible for a part of the hospital population - for surgical patients, or cardiology patients or paediatric patients or whatever - overnight or over the weekend or over some usually well defined time period.
When something happens with a patient that falls in your area, you may well get called in to deal with it. Or sometimes you can just give advice over the phone and the in-hospital doctors there and then will deal with it.
The doctors who go "on call" are usually the consultants in that field (one of the unit bosses, fully fledged and fully qualified in that area). In some cases the registrar (senior trainee) in that area may be on call as well - usually in paediatrics they are in the hospital on an after-hours rotation roster.
How many hours on call will depend on how many paediatricians you have. In the hospital where I work, they tend to have a month on call and then swap. There are about 4-6 paediatricians so it doesn't seem to be much of an imposition for them.
For their on call month this averages out to be about 4 weekends and 20-23 other nights for which they are on-call.
2007-07-17 07:15:53 · answer #1 · answered by Orinoco 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
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2016-05-30 20:03:43 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I want to find the place where on call physicians are paid time and a half! Sign me up!
The call I have taken usually pays NOTHING unless a case comes in. So, you either get a bad night's sleep for nothing, or no sleep for whatever the insurance company pays for whatever you did.
When you're on call, that means you are the doctor who gets called when there is a patient care issue in your field.
I'm an anesthesiologist, so it's usually a surgical procedure or a labor epidural. Orthopedic surgeons get called to set bones, surgically repair fractures, and deal with ANY issue that one of their inpatients might have.
Pediatricians probably can handle a lot of what they have to do by phone ("give her some Tylenol and we'll see her in the office tomorrow"), but if a sick kid has to be admitted to the hospital, the pediatrician has to go in and do the history & physical and write orders.
BTW, doctors have "patients" not "clients". Lawyers and accountants have clients.
2007-07-17 08:52:33 · answer #3 · answered by Pangolin 7 · 6⤊ 0⤋
"On Call" means you're not in the office, but you are available if an emergency arises. This applies to all doctors, not just peds doctors. In many offices, the doctors take turns being on call, but generally all doctors are technically on-call when they aren't working.
2007-07-17 07:25:43 · answer #4 · answered by gilliegrrrl 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
They have to be available to answer any emergency calls for themeselves and the other physicians they are covering their calls as well.
With the advent of emergency room physicians you will find the doc on call is very discret on what calls he answers.
Also with the threat of lawsuits, the chance of getting a prescription refilled by the one call doc, unless he knows you, is very slim.
The hours, and how often are dependant upon the doctors he is taking call for. It can be one night, a week(when I was an anesthesia technician we took call for one week at a time(specifically Sunday night at 11:00 pm, until the following Sunday night at 11:00, during the week our call began at 5:30 pm).
So it varies, by the doctor, the practice, etc.
2007-07-17 07:22:07 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Ok at my doctors office we have 3 doctors. The doctor who is on call takes care of the patients for the doctors who are not there. For example we only have one doctor today so he is on call and he is seeing the other two doctors patients along with his. And refills all meds, answers questions, etc. He is on call until tomorrow which would be 12am tonight.
2007-07-17 07:18:23 · answer #6 · answered by ♥lOvE♥ 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's when people (or kids) pretend to be a doctor so they can tell their "patient" to undress and touch parts of their body, etc. It's sexual in nature.
2016-03-15 05:47:08 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
doctors in an area take turns being 'on call'. It means they are technically off duty, but should an emergency arise, they have to go deal with it.
2007-07-17 07:15:50 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It means that they have to make themselves available for patients in their specialty that evening. They don't necessarily have to be in the hospital all the time, but must be readily available when paged or called.
2007-07-17 07:16:44 · answer #9 · answered by WC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Being "on call" means that you are potentially liable to be called back into work during non-normal office hours to handle cases. For example, my mother is an RN in the Post-anesthetic care unit at an acute care hospital. Her normal work hours are 7AM to 3PM, but while she is on call she is liable to be called back in during hours outside of those to handle patients. Nurses and physicians are usually paid time-and-a-half for hours that they are on call, and are usually paid for a minimum of two hours of on-call work, even if they only do 15 minutes of work simply because it's a pain the butt sometimes. The on call rotation is split between the nurses (or physicians in your case), so how often you are on call depends on how many nurses/physicians are on staff. I would say my mom is on call once or twice a month. This is where physicians make tons of money. I mean tons.
2007-07-17 07:20:44 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 4⤋