What "Call" for doctors means to me

For different jobs people are sometimes "on call". It usually means that there is a pager they have to carry and if some emergency happens they have to respond to it. If it actually goes off, they try and resolve the issue before most people start their "work day". When their co-workers start the day, the person on call hands off the issue to them and goes to home to bed.

That's not what call means to me.

Now, take this with a grain of salt because I've only seen call from a 2nd hand experience. I've never worked what I'm going to describe.

First, there are 2 types of call: in-house call and home call. In house call means you stay at the hospital. You sleep in a room and are woken up at any time. Of course that assumes that you get a chance to sleep, which isn't necessarily the case. When Laura worked those shifts, she's start work around 7 am, work until 5 pm. Then "call" would start where they'd work from 7 pm until 8 am (only on a rotation or 2), or noon or 1 pm. Then you'd go home, try and get a nap, get up, eat dinner, and go to bed because you'd have to be back at work for 7 am. It seems to be some weird sleep deprivation experiment. From my understanding, some residency programs do 1 in 4 call - one "day" of call in every 4 - for 5+ years.

Now home call is much nicer. You still have the whole 7 am - 5 pm [1] idea, but you've got the chance to "go home". You can go home, see your family, eat at home, etc. If you're called in, you are supposed to be able to make it to the hospital in 20 minutes. If you get called, sometimes you can give orders over the phone, but more than often I have seen Laura go in.

You'd think that it might be worth the money though. I did a quick calculation for what the residents get paid for being on call - for those hours from 5 pm to noon-ish, it worked out to be about 2 $ / hour.

What's it like when your SO is on call? Trying to pick up some slack, make sure that their a hot meal available when needed, being flexible with your schedule. Sometimes it means dealing with someone who is so tired you have to keep repeating what you said 90 seconds ago.

Sometimes when talking to people they give a "I know what that's like!" and "when I was on call...". I don't actually think that they do know what it's like. I feel I only have a vague idea, and I'm front row. Sort of like how I am not going to say to a parent "I know what that's like!" because I've got no clue and babysitting or looking after someone else's kids isn't the same.

That's what call means to me.

[1] Think of 5 pm as a "guideline". Depending on the work, 5 pm can be more like 9 pm.