Call by the week vs. Call by the night

[univlad]

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At your program do you take call by the week or by the night?

 

[yaah]

With the new residency rules I am not sure you are allowed to take call by the week - because even with home call you are required to have a certain number of days off and a certain number of hours free of call responsibilities, no matter even if you were to request this. Thus, when on call for a weekend one resident cannot be on from friday 5pm to monday 8am continuously.

Perhaps some programs get around this but I am not sure how they can do it legally. Thus, call is by day/night.

 

[phoenixFI]

I know that UTSW still has weeklong call, 2-3 time per year, but I'm not sure exactly how it is setup or how (or if) it complies with the 80hr cap.

 

[sohsie]

With the new residency rules I am not sure you are allowed to take call by the week - because even with home call you are required to have a certain number of days off and a certain number of hours free of call responsibilities, no matter even if you were to request this. Thus, when on call for a weekend one resident cannot be on from friday 5pm to monday 8am continuously.

Perhaps some programs get around this but I am not sure how they can do it legally. Thus, call is by day/night.

This is not correct. One must have one day off in seven, AVERAGED over a four week period. This means that one can certainly take call for a whole week or weekend and still be OK as long as they have at least one day free of work or call in the other weeks plus one extra day. Since most pathology programs you are off on weekends when not on call, this is no problem. No pathology program that I know of has had to change their call schedules at all. I can't think of a pathology program where the resident on call for the weekend DOESN'T cover the whole weekend.

The official rules from the ACGME states:
Residents must be provided 1 day in 7 free from all educational and clinical responsibilities, averaged over a 4-week perioid, inclusive of call. One day is defined as one continuous 24-hour period free from all clinical, educational, and administrative activities.

The official ACGME language is found here:
http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/dutyHours/dh_Lang703.pdf

 

[yaah]

I can't think of a pathology program where the resident on call for the weekend DOESN'T cover the whole weekend.

Mine.

And many others I interviewed at, including where I did my PSF.

But your right, according to the link, "at home call" is not included in the "not more than 24 hours plus 6 hours" of duty.