My first call night!

[DianaLynne]

OMG, I am so nervous about being on call. I've been on Cards for two days and it's q4.

So, how much coffee can one drink in one night? Is there where I find the secret Adderall stash? Is there a caffiene drip?

Wish me awakeness...

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[Tired]

OMG, I am so nervous about being on call. I've been on Cards for two days and it's q4.

So, how much coffee can one drink in one night? Is there where I find the secret Adderall stash? Is there a caffiene drip?

Wish me awakeness...

I like Panda's advice on this. Uppers are a fake wake-up call, and won't get you through the whole call. Try just staying hydrated with plenty of water. I switched away from the chemicals last year, and it's made my call nights much more comfortable. And for the record, I never sleep on call.

 

[surrender903]

if i have to stay up all night then id rather drink something im going to enjoy.

and if you doze off do it in the call room.

 

[MrBurns10]

I thought you were allowed to sleep during in-house call. Am I wrong about this? What is in-house call like on surgery?

 

[deleted109597]

I love it. "Allowed to sleep".
Sure, if all the work is done and your other residents aren't idiots who think that they need to control all the time and/or television volume.

 

[UCLAstudent]

I thought you were allowed to sleep during in-house call. Am I wrong about this? What is in-house call like on surgery?

I can only speak for trauma surgery. I generally got about 2 hours of sleep whenever I was on call --- usually from 3:30 to 5:30AM (at which time I had to wake up to pre-round of my patients). Call wasn't too bad, though!

 

[raidermedic]

Towards the end of my 3rd year I found that a protein shake late in the afternoon, a protein bar later in the night, and plenty of H20 throughout the call helped keep my physically awake. Mentally though you are pretty much shot around the 2 or 3 am mark. You can still function well enough not to seriously screw anything up but learning seems to go down exponentially.

I thought you were allowed to sleep during in-house call. Am I wrong about this? What is in-house call like on surgery?

Depends how busy you are and the resident you are working with. I've had residents who would tell me to go to sleep at 12 even though admits were still coming in, while others would keep me awake with them watching late night TV.

Surgery call can be a bear especially if your resident is cross covering all services. Working up acute abds in the ER alone will keep you up most of the night.

 

[raidermedic]

I can only speak for trauma surgery. I generally got about 2 hours of sleep whenever I was on call --- usually from 3:30 to 5:30AM (at which time I had to wake up to pre-round of my patients). Call wasn't too bad, though!

Guess it's different at different schools. I did two dedicated trauma surgery calls and had pretty much the entire night free and only had to get up when my trauma pager went off.

 

[MrBurns10]

Gotcha. Well, after in-house call for surgery, what time did you get out the next day? I wouldn't mind call as long as I got to go home early the day after...

 

[raidermedic]

Gotcha. Well, after in-house call for surgery, what time did you get out the next day? I wouldn't mind call as long as I got to go home early the day after...

LOL Yeah you've pretty much stumbled on the worst part of call. Not the staying up itself but functioning the next day with little to no sleep. In theory most places let you go home around noon. In reality you go home when they let you. Some programs actually make you stay and work the entire day. While most let you go whenever your resident is done with cases. Which can be anywhere from noon to 7 pm. If you're scrubbed into a case and it runs over you can't exactly scrub out to go home. Surgery above all other specialties values hard work and a basic lack of care for your own self. So yeah expect long hours.

 

[UCLAstudent]

Gotcha. Well, after in-house call for surgery, what time did you get out the next day? I wouldn't mind call as long as I got to go home early the day after...

The rule at my school is no later than noon. It was usually around 10AM.

 

[Sean2tall]

Depends how busy you are and the resident you are working with. I've had residents who would tell me to go to sleep at 12 even though admits were still coming in, while others would keep me awake with them watching late night TV.

I think this sums it up about perfectly.

 

[DianaLynne]

Well, I didn't die, they let me sleep from 3:30-6:30. It was a little annoying in the morning when the attending suddenly decided to make an effort to start teaching where she hadn't before. I was pretty thick by that point.

And anyway, I have call again on Sunday, so I will try out some more ideas, especially the protein shakes.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[relema]

I was on call the other night for oby/gyn and i did not sit down for very long the whole night...sleep was not even an option. I was fine with some snacks and water and i did not really feel how tired i was until i was about ready to go home and then my body ached from being up for 27hrs and i found that i was really emotional but not sleepy. I took a three hour nap when i got home and that helped a bit... plus it saved me from completely sleeping through my post call day.