I am a psych resident. While overall as a field psych will, on average, involve less call than other fields, you will still have to take call.
Also, although, on average, psych call is less stressful and an average call day is less “intense” than a call day in another specialty, this is highly variable depending on where you train.
The first thing to mention about this is that often times the reason call can be less frequent than other specialties is that it is sometimes assumed that psych patients are more medically stable than on other services in the hospital so at some places call coverage can involve responsibility for many more patients than on other hospital services. At my hospital inpatient call coverage involves responsibility for ~80 beds + admissions + emergency inpatient consults. This already makes call pretty busy.
The other thing to consider with regards to what call may involve is the medical capabilities of your inpatient units. Call at a stand-alone psych hospital will generally be less stressful than at a major psych hospital that is part of a med/surg hospital. Departmental philosophy and resultant resources also play into what the psych unit may be capable of. A more medically capable psych unit will make call more stressful. My hospital’s psych units are capable of oxygen, IV medications/fluids, blood transfusions, non-ICU post-op care (with involved consultants of course), etc. Our patients have a variety of known medical problems and with covering about 80 of them overnight, odds of unexpected issues are relatively high. Our capability to care for these patients is a point of pride for us but it makes call quite stressful and you have to be really good at medicine. To be honest, behavioral emergencies don’t really phase me much anymore because that’s my specialty and I’ve gotten really good at handling them. The medical stuff can be very stressful and decisions can be complicated because they involve knowing exactly what can and can’t be done on our relatively capable psych floors.
So I guess overall what I will say is that call in psych is variable but you will always have to take some call. Do be careful to consider what call entails when making your decisions about residency because there are psych programs out there where the intensity of call may be more akin to what call is like in other specialties than the average psych residency. These programs are great (I love mine) but if you want something cush and wind up in them, you will be totally miserable.
