I'm thinking about an on call position for a hospital and wanted some feedback from others who already work that kind of shift. What are your normal hours? What are your responsibilities? How do you cover vacation/time off? What kind of pay do you get?
Do you work hospital on call?
- Thread starter Niosh
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Do you mean something like working a shift then being on call that night or just being on call on your day off? I'm on call when I work my weekend job.. so far it's just been a little extra money on my paycheck since I've never been called in. Is this for a hospital? My side job is in a smaller community hospital (maybe 100 beds, perhaps fewer), which is not a 24/7 pharmacy. We load any new meds into the Pyxis and have an after hours area accessible to nursing for certain meds. My colleagues all day they have only been called in a handful of times and most have been there nearly 10 years. I figure worst case scenario is I come in to make high risk IV meds in an emergency situation. It'll just depend on what type of institution it is.
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It varies drastically by hospital - I was oncall at a small hospital where we would have the pharmacy closed - so we were responsible for any RN/MD questions after hours - or rarely had to come in for something the RN's could do on their own - I got paid a whopping $2 an hour for this - but it was easy - just annoying. At my current hospital we are on call only in the case someone calls in sick - no pay
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New job does like @Dred Pirate 's hospital and has 1-2 people "on call" every week to cover sick calls.
Where i did residency we had a resident in house 24/7 on call. I know of other residencies that have their residents take 24/7 phone call from home for drug info questions or approving restricted drugs.
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Where i did residency we had a resident in house 24/7 on call. I know of other residencies that have their residents take 24/7 phone call from home for drug info questions or approving restricted drugs.
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Yeah, this is for a CAH so the pharmacy isn't open 24/7. Previously there have been "house supervisor" nurses with access to the pharmacy during off hours, but they have no access to the controlled vault and no order verification. So this would be "on-call" during all pharmacy off hours, no sick leave coverage.
I'm trying to decide how much I would want to be responsible for, IE do I want to come in and verify orders, do remote verification, only do "high risk" verification like PK, only come in for immediate need controlled substances. And then the question of pay, do I want a % of my normal hourly, a flat sum each pay check, or a fee for service style depending on use?
It doesn't seem like much, but for a pharmacy that's closed ~100 hours/week that's an extra 800/month. Do you think that's too little? I guess that'd also depend on how often I'd get called and how much is expected of me.
How much extra if you don't mind answering? Would you get more if you were called in?
It looks like it is $2/hr for a total of 18 hours over the course of a weekend. I think you get paid for at least an hour of work if you get called in, and longer if you stay longer, but I can't remember. I've been there a year with no call yet.
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like others have said it depends. my hospital on call is only for people currently employed, so you still have your regular shift rather its 8-4:30, 7-3:30, 9:30-6, or 2-10. the pharmacy closes at 10, and on call is 10-7am. so anything rather its pk, verifying order, Tylenol, whatever they call the on call person in for. the rate I believe is time and a half for each call you get, then it gets a bit more complicated as far as if the next call is 15 minutes later its considered more pay vs being considered apart of the first call. I don't participate in it, since its voluntary as long as all the shifts are covered. it can be very very profitable depending on how busy you are. the draw back is, you still have to be fully functional for your normal shift.
Wow, that seems really good. I guess if you're already working full time, any on call time would be over time.
If I got time and a half for my side job, which already pays $15/hr more than my full-time position, I'd gladly take a few hours of being called in
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On-call isn't bad, most of the time it's money for very little work, but it does limit what you can do during your free time (no road trips), and if you don't live close to the hospital, you could easily spend more time driving in, then actually doing anything in the hospital. Or if you get called during something like a concert or movie, and have to miss out. Mostly I just get minor consult questions, which are easily answered over the phone. Rarely, do I have to actually go into do something, and that would involve accessing a medication not stocked in the Pyxis or in even more rare cases, if the pyxis has run out of the medication (which can happen, but since almost all medications are stocked in more then one floor, the house supervisor can access the drug from another floor, if the pyxis on the pt's floor is out of medication.)
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