General Call Information

• Weekday calls are generally taken from home after a usual workday (unless call is taken as night float). This includes all calls from Monday through Friday. Weekday calls last from 5pm-8am. Usual duties include placing orders for new admissions, responding to overnight nursing calls, and occasionally answering after hours questions from community physicians.
• Weekend calls usually involve coming into the hospital until 5pm. During weekend calls fellows see urgent consults and patients boarding in the emergency department (ED). This work is shared with the on-call attending and is usually limited to 4-5 patients per day. After 5pm, call continues from home and is similar to duties in weekday call.
• Reporting to the hospital during night call is very rare and only happens in specific circumstances, such as a "surge" in the ED or an urgent consult that cannot wait until morning. The ED has mental health evaluators (MHE) who provide initial evaluation and risk assessment and the fellow cannot be called in to cover gaps in MHE staffing. If a fellow is called in for "surge" periods, they are only expected to be in the ED until midnight before returning home and the attending on-call handles pages from the hospital while the fellow is in the ED.
• Each fellow should have ~4 Saturday calls, ~4 Sunday calls, ~4 Friday calls, ~16 weekday (Mon - Thurs) calls and one public holiday.
• The current call schedule allows a choice between night float or scattered call (see below) and individual preferences including planned leave are taken into account when creating the schedule.

Descriptions of types of call:

• Night float: During night float, fellows are on call from 5 pm at night to 8 am the next day and then start the next call at 5 pm on that day. Fellows don’t need to go to their usual rotations during night float weeks. The night float schedule is set up as either Sunday start (Sunday 24hr shift followed by Mon-Thu nights) OR Monday start (fellows will not need to go to their rotation on Monday, and night float would be from Mon-Thu nights).
  • The benefit of starting on Sunday is that fellows can consolidate their call so that they aren’t on a separate Sunday not attached to a night float week.
• Scattered single night calls: On a single night call, fellows work their normal day shift and are then on-call from 5 pm to 8 am the next day. They have the rest of the day off as their post call day.
• Hybrid system: mix of night float and scattered calls.