private practice call

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Our worst weekend calls (or best depending on your perspective since it's mucho dinero) is 12hrs on Sat and 12 on Sun. But that's in-house in a busy practice. We actually have four docs in-house to start our Saturdays, which tapers to 1 by 7pm, with one of those day-shift docs the backup guy who is rarely called back. Two start on Sundays, but the 2nd is peeled off early if it's quiet.
 
460 bed hospital, 7000 deliveries per year.
We have 1 doc doing a 24 hour in house OB shift every day.
We have 1 doc in house pulling call in the main OR every night (4p to 7a) with a back up person from home (who worked during the day until the ORs are down to one room). On the weekends, those are 24 hours shifts, 7a to 7a. Whenever you are post OB or first call, you are off the next day. The back up call person from home is sometimes required to work the next day, depending on coverage.
28 MDs in the group. So you average 1 of each kind of call per month.
Some people like to work more than others, they will accept calls from others to beef up $$. A 24 hour shift on Saturday is money. My wife and I have a list of restaurants. When I get an extra money shift, we celebrate with a big night out. I snagged half a money shift today (Saturday OB). Does that mean I get to go out by myself?
Tuck
 
Pilot Doc said:
Good lord -I hope you're an MD only group. Or are you routinely running a dozen rooms every Saturday morning?
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Oh no - 40 docs, 80+ anesthetists, 18,000 deliveries a year, and only 8 rooms on Saturday mornings. 😉
 
currently in PP, group covers 1 large hospital, 1 small hospital, 1 large surgical center... We take call 7Pm-7am week at a time at the large hospital...the second small hospital adds a little bit of extra work..ok on most nights but one more place to cover for emergencies...
 
Our weekend calls are 12 hour shifts and you will usually work 1-2 on a weekend that you are on (or 1 shift and backup for 24 hours from home). Ends up being about 10-11 weekends per year.
 
Friday-Monday. Home call. One month you will be primary general for one weekend. The next month you will be secondary general + primary CT call for a weekend. So, one weekend a month overall.
As primary you are sure to come in and do a handful of cases. As secondary you usually just carry the pager (rare to get called in as secondary general or CT). Works out pretty nice since we don't do trauma and have very little OB compared to some on this thread. If it was a busy hospital, I don't think I'd want to be on call Fri-Mon straight.
 
proman said:
JWK's hospital's OB ward is the size of some small hospitals. All deliveries for north Atlanta. Whatever happened to N Fulton and St Joe's getting OB? Did that get killed?
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North Fulton still does. It never happened at St. Joes.

Note to bigdan - the 18,000 was not a typo. 🙂
 
There are 11 of us. We take beeper call. # docs on the weekend (Fri/Sat/Sun). Three docs are on each day, with the fist two often working. The third guy is mostly cardiac and rarely used. Each guy does a 1st, 2nd and 3rd call over the three days.
 
Where I am now: Our calls are no longer than 24 hours. So we do 1-2 weekend calls. There is 1 attending in OB, and 1 attending in trauma. Both have 2 CRNAs. Occasionally a 24 hour call will be split into 12 hours, but that generally doesn't happen on the weekends.


Where I came from: 1 attending + 2 residents in OB, 1 attending + 2 residents in the general OR. Cardiac attending is first backup from home. Then there is one more person as a 3rd backup in case a cardiac case is going on and general attending still needs backup (very rare). There is usually also 1 resident moonlighter on weekends for a couple of hours (7-3 Saturday, 7-12 Sunday).
 
much better then as a resident. just spent an entire sunday daytime fixing hips and labor epidurals, slept from 9 pm to 7 am. our surgeons don't operate at night unless there is fluid or air in the belly. strange that we don't do very many c/s at nights or one weekends, either these obs are good at vaginal births or the ones during my residency were not. we do 3k delveries per year
 
powermd said:
Question for the folks in private practice-

How is weekend call handled in your practice? How many of you take entire weekends on call for your hospital (Friday night to Monday morning)?
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I do Sat-Mon 7am-7 am. Every 6th weekend. Monday - off.
 
bostonblaz said:
much better then as a resident. just spent an entire sunday daytime fixing hips and labor epidurals, slept from 9 pm to 7 am. our surgeons don't operate at night unless there is fluid or air in the belly. strange that we don't do very many c/s at nights or one weekends, either these obs are good at vaginal births or the ones during my residency were not. we do 3k delveries per year
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3000 deliveries per year and you get some sleep on call😱 What is the C-section rate there? We do about a thousand less and seem to do many many sections at night.
 
proman said:
JWK's hospital's OB ward is the size of some small hospitals. All deliveries for north Atlanta. Whatever happened to N Fulton and St Joe's getting OB? Did that get killed?
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Pretty much every woman in Atlanta delivers at that hospital. I don't know anyone who hasn't. I'll be delivering there myself later this year.

I've always heard it has more deliveries than any other hospital in the country.
 
Every fifth weekend my call covers entire weekend (Fri -Sun). Out of the four weekends I'm free from first call I cover backup call for the entire weekend. So, I get three out of five weekends call free.👍 There are benefits to being on call. They include call pay (hospital call subsidies) and additional paying cases (benefit for 1099's only). We don't take our post call days off by choice because that would equate loosing 1 out of 5 working days (20% salary decrease!!!👎thumbdown👎eek🙂. I have designated that 20% income for 100% recreational use and abuse...such as a lambo G payment (you only live once chumps and when you die it's for a very long time!).
 
Agree. 1099 set up is nice. Post call we are "available". So we carry the beeper until the first room is out (around 12:00/13:00). This = 1k extra for not doing much. If I actually come in and work, you add on to that per diem base. We have a unique system of reimbursement that as a group we all like.
 
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