Call is so useless....

[basupran]

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Total of 2 patients on the census, no admissions, 18 hour call for no damn reason. I don't get it.

 

[cdql]

I had great residents who always let me out early on calls.

Their reasoning made more sense, "You'll have to suffer thru this as a resident anyway. Why do it as a student?"

 

[dilated]

Our school has eliminated most o/n call. It's certainly conducive to reading more. On the down side I think it gives you a falsely positive view of residency, it's hard to settle on a field when you get the easy fun version during your rotation.

Not that that's in any way enough of a downside to justify having to take overnight call on freaking peds or something.

 

[agranulocytosis]

I think if you can get ~4-5 hours of sleep per call, it shouldn't be so bad. Just make sure to bring in extra socks, deodorant, and possibly a toothbrush/mouthwash. Does the hospital have call rooms for the students?

 

[psychbender]

That sucks. See if your resident will just let you go home early, and not tell the attending (how else would the attending find out?). My first intern in the MICU used to tell me that unless something totally awesome came in, he wouldn't wake me after 0300. Those three hours of sleep made Q3 call much more bearable.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Call, in and of itself is not bad, but certainly feel your pain if you only have a census of 2 and it's a slow night.

I got really lucky with my calls third year and always had good residents to work with. At my school (at least on medicine which is our most closely watched call) the residents usually wanted students to do 2 admit H&P's, be ready present them in the AM, and after that were totally cool with letting students go to sleep. It's definitely how I'm going to approach call when I'm a resident - get some experience learning/doing without wasting too much of the students time and allowing them to get some sleep. As long as their are student call rooms, if I were you, I'd ask to go to sleep. That way you get some credit for being there the whole shift, but still are better off than watching your resident do nothing.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

I had great residents who always let me out early on calls.

Their reasoning made more sense, "You'll have to suffer thru this as a resident anyway. Why do it as a student?"

Makes perfect sense to me. Doing it as a student doesn't make it suck any less as an intern. The stupid peds department here penalizes you for leaving call early even if nothing is happening and everyone on your team tells you to go home. Their rationale is that doing it as a student prepares you for internship. Total bunk if you ask me.

 

[The Angriest Bird]

OP: if you think having 0 admissions sucks, try the opposite way. I just did.

I just got back from a 24-hour trauma shift. I started with rounding and finished with rounding. This is a public hospital renowned for its trauma care. We had patients coming in one after another. At one time four patients came in at the same time. One got transferred from 300 miles away and I had to go to the helipad to give a hand. I barely had a chance to sit down, not to say sleeping.

If you think I've learned a lot, you are actually wrong. It's the same freaking case over and over again. Everyone is going through the exact same process: ABCDE, FAST, CXR, PXR, CT scan, and consult Ortho. My job was somewhere more than a Tech but less than an RN. No one was teaching because 1) there's no attending 2) everyone's busy. By the time I got home, my feet hurt like devil. My legs are absolutely sore. I almost called someone to pick me up because I could barely wake up to drive. After I got home, I sleep from 7am to noon. Eat. Then 1pm to 7pm. Eat. And now I'm doing some random stuffs and going back to sleep at 10pm. I need to wake up tomorrow at 4am for another day.

Does this make you feel better?

 

[The Angriest Bird]

Doing it as a student doesn't make it suck any less as an intern.

The worst part of being a med student is that you have to appear to be excited and interested while there's absolutely nothing going. The intern can act like he/she doesn't give a damn.

 

[45408]

Our school has eliminated most o/n call. It's certainly conducive to reading more. On the down side I think it gives you a falsely positive view of residency, it's hard to settle on a field when you get the easy fun version during your rotation.

That's why I made sure to pick one of the two surgery rotations that had overnight call, so I'd have a more realistic picture. If you can't hack it as a student, there's no way you can do it as a resident.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

OP: if you think having 0 admissions sucks, try the opposite way. I just did.

I just got back from a 24-hour trauma shift.

I thought trauma was the single best thing I've done in third year. Always lots going on; lots of procedures for the students to do; plus I always find it pretty exciting to roll down to the ED for a level 1.

 

[LadyWolverine]

I thought trauma was the single best thing I've done in third year. Always lots going on; lots of procedures for the students to do; plus I always find it pretty exciting to roll down to the ED for a level 1.

Yeah, except for the part about AM rounds that last 3+ hours (I thought this was surgery, folks?). Which especially sucks after you've been up all night. I'd never slept standing up until I did my trauma rotation. I agree, though, that there was usually a lot to do.

 

[JenHeart]

I am not interested in OB/Gyn at all... and was on call for that rotation Q4. I let the residents know that it is not what I will be going into. They let me sleep all night and still got a honors. It was pointless but would have been frustrating to be woken up every thirty minutes for a typical NSVD.

 

[Neogenesis]

We had to take call on my surgical rotation. However, because work hours don't apply to students, we were expected to be at our lectures the following day.....which were at 1630. All fine and well if you get some sleep.😴

The problem was, the residents had a night float system and the particular resident that was on during my block would never send you to bed. I literally stood and watched him try to start an IV on a pt for 3+ hours one night. He made another classmate go look stuff up in the library. He pretty much just forgot about sending you away. One night, I realized that if I called him at the beginning of the shift, told him I was going to grab some dinner and that I had the pager if he needed me, he would forget about me again. Only this time, I got to sleep all night. The rest of my calls were great, because I got more sleep than I did if I had gone home.