ok, as a doctor, how often does one get called to come in to work 15 to 20 hours of overtime at a moments notice?
the reason i’m asking. its 9:30 in the a.m. my husband just got a call that he has to come into work due to the transit strike here in NYC. he has to be there at 12, which means he has to leave now - traffic will be very heavy, and we live about an hour from his precinct on a good day. geez. i can’t imagine what the whitestone will look like today, what with all the construction on it too! 
anyways. we were scheduled to go christmas shopping for our daughter - today is technically his day off. needless to say, its been quite a letdown for all of us, especially since who knows how long he will have to work… as of now, its a 12 hour tour, but yeah… right. i’ll believe that when he gets home at 1:30 in the a.m. 
we’ve been going through this for 7 years already, so i know better by now! LOL
i guess what i was wondering is how often would i have to disappoint my daughter like this as a doctor? i mean, a few times here and there, fine. but is there stuff like this? where they can (frequently) call you at the drop of the hat and have you come in asap and have to work for 15 hours?
~sigh~ i guess i’m just annoyed because we finally had plans to go do shopping for her, and now i’m on my own. again.
so, is this a common, regular occurance in medicine?
GARRRR. i wouldn’t be so annoyed if they called in the middle of the night for him. at least then he would be the only one affected.
When a physician is on call, then their home life can be disrupted at any minute. I lived through this with my mother as an FP and dad as a CRNA. You just make do with the time you’ve got. But, on your days off, you’re OFF. I’ve seen my mom get a little more than irate at some nurses for calling her about hospital admissions on her day off!
The amount of time on call, too, varies with your position. If you are in a larger group the call isn’t as often. If you’re an OBGYN, you can bet you’ll be away more often than a dermatologist. As a resident, you can bet you’ll be away more than when you finish with residency. It’s all relative, so if you want a position where you’re not away from your family alot, plan as best you can for that (e.g. try to opt for a specialty that allows for a lifestyle you want).
Maybe those that are actually physicians will shed more light on that.
Quote:
ok, as a doctor, how often does one get called to come in to work 15 to 20 hours of overtime at a moments notice?
the reason i’m asking. its 9:30 in the a.m. my husband just got a call that he has to come into work due to the transit strike here in NYC. he has to be there at 12, which means he has to leave now - traffic will be very heavy, and we live about an hour from his precinct on a good day. geez. i can’t imagine what the whitestone will look like today, what with all the construction on it too!
anyways. we were scheduled to go christmas shopping for our daughter - today is technically his day off. needless to say, its been quite a letdown for all of us, especially since who knows how long he will have to work… as of now, its a 12 hour tour, but yeah… right. i’ll believe that when he gets home at 1:30 in the a.m.
i guess what i was wondering is how often would i have to disappoint my daughter like this as a doctor? i mean, a few times here and there, fine. but is there stuff like this? where they can (frequently) call you at the drop of the hat and have you come in asap and have to work for 15 hours?
~sigh~ i guess i’m just annoyed because we finally had plans to go do shopping for her, and now i’m on my own. again.
so, is this a common, regular occurance in medicine?
GARRRR. i wouldn’t be so annoyed if they called in the middle of the night for him. at least then he would be the only one affected.
Well medicine may not be for you. Sorry not to make you mad but I worked 18years as an RN and 9 of those in Hospice and took call 3 to 7 days at a stretch. That would mean working all day then I could be called out 3 secs from pulling into the driveway and work a couple hours to all night. Called out of a sleep, middle of he night, called anytime 24 hours a day during the week end. But when I was off, I was off. No overtime since I did call time. As a Doc you have in most cases call (there are jobs as a Doc without call like ER.). A lot of residents take call in the hospital where they get to sleep at night. But you may have to stay up all night 24 hours. Those shows where they say I’ve been on 48 hours, well that may have been 48 hours without sleep. Thats the longest I went as an RN I once did about 44 hours without sleep on call. I’ve been there and done it and still I want to be an FP.
Good Luck.
Whuds stated it and I have to say that call is “usually” the worst when you are a newbie too…meaning to get nice call or no call you have to “usually” put in your time so to speak. So the lowest man/woman on the chain aka the least time in will do more call than those that have been there done that for years so beware. Also some specialties WILL have more call than others and until you get there and know what you want to do regardless of what you might think now (bc this does change) you will not know what your lifestyle will be. So assume the worst…hence rethink and rethink hard this career.
thanks everyone. i have been thinking and rethinking this career hard for the last 29 years of my life! 
thats why i’m on the OLD premeds website! LOLOL!!!
anyway. most of my gripe was just that. a gripe - my husband had to go to work, which meant i had to do the xmas shopping for HIS side of the family - without his input. besides the fact that my 16 month old daughter has a stomach bug, and i’ve been dealing with vomit and diarrhea for the last couple of days. ugh. so i was just a teensy bit more annoyed than i usually would have been. sorry to have subjected you all to it!!! - i just happened to be poking around the site when they called him, so you all got to hear it. 
and now that i’m thinking rationally, compared to what he gets in the nypd, specific “call days” sounds heavenly. they essentially have call 24/7/365 which really rots. at least when you have call days, you sort of know what to expect.
but, i’m all over it now. and to my fellow new yorkers… i hope you are all staying warm as you walk/bike/wait for a cab. 
Quote:
Whuds stated it and I have to say that call is “usually” the worst when you are a newbie too…meaning to get nice call or no call you have to “usually” put in your time so to speak. So the lowest man/woman on the chain aka the least time in will do more call than those that have been there done that for years so beware. Also some specialties WILL have more call than others and until you get there and know what you want to do regardless of what you might think now (bc this does change) you will not know what your lifestyle will be. So assume the worst…hence rethink and rethink hard this career.
Hi there,
This works for most specialties except surgery. Every year, we have call and during your chief year, you probably have more call (interns on every 6 days; chiefs on every third day). Of course, it is a lot nicer to come in and operate than come in or stay in and do non-operative stuff. When the intern is overwhelmed, guess who picks up the slack? The chief. I have to say that I am a better intern than I when I was an intern and doing the intern stuff is a nice change.
When we have multi traumas, all senior surgery residents get called in to help with the work. After all, there is no replacement for a surgeon. If you need a surgeon, you need a surgeon and no other specialty will suffice. Yes, you can be called in to work 10 to 15 hours as a moments notice but those are usually the best experiences. This is one of the things that I love about this specialty.
A couple of weeks ago, we had multiple pediatric trauma casulties from a minivan versus semi-truck. We were paged in to help with the surgeries. Everyone that came to our hospital lived but there were fatalities that went to other institutions. It was a sad experience that little children were so injured but I loved being able to help save a life or two.
Natalie
I wanted to add that there are times I looked forward to call, yea sounds strange but I like to solve problems and on call you solve a lot of problems.
Dr. Belle,
What in your opinion would be a maximum age for someone to select surgery as a specialty, versus, FP or Internal medicine?
Thanks!
jeffc
Quote:Hi there,
Dr. Belle,
What in your opinion would be a maximum age for someone to select surgery as a specialty, versus, FP or Internal medicine?
Thanks!
jeffc
As long as you feel that you can get the job done. After you have done a third-year clerkship in surgery, you will have an idea of what it takes mentally and physically to do surgery. If you find that you love it and can do it, there is no age barrier. The work hours are long and there’s lots of studying to be done outside of work. If you love it, it’s not work.
Natalie
hi whuds… i can totally relate about looking forward to call. when i worked in financial printing, we had call days, too… of course, it wasn’t a life on the line (though the clients/sales folk sure acted like it was a life on the line… and usually like it was MINE!!! LOL) i found that having call worked in my favor a lot of time! we were supposed to go out to dinner with my husbands so not nice on so many levels sister and husband - i actually got out of it using the old, “well, gotta get into the office. probably won’t be out til well past midnight! roadshow tomorrow, ya know?”
then again, i also remember days i absolutely dreaded it because it interfered with things i wanted to do. however, i was the youngest scout in the troupe, so i got dumped on a lot - covering the pager for the other reps so they could go out and do their thing. (funny. a lot of my past life in fin. prin. sounds a lot like what people talk about residency to be like… long, long hours, rude superiors/clients, menial go-fer work, etc.)
but yeah, for the most part i didn’t mind. because like i said. if i had that pager on my hip, i knew that it could go off at any second. and like you, it was a rush to be able to solve the problem. again, our problems weren’t life or death… but they were million dollar problems, sometimes multi million. and no one wants to see a multi million dollar merger go south because the financial printers screwed up royally. so, still a big deal - just on a different level.
i guess my thing is just… well… as long as i know i’m on call. my husband doesn’t get a pager/company phone. they call him at home and on his cell. they leave a message if he doesn’t answer. if he doesn’t show up, he can be disciplined. so long as they leave a message, even if they never speak to him in person.
sigh. three more years and he can retire early. and i should be ready to start applying to schools in about four more years… yay!
wow. i can see why you love your specialty! how truly awesome it is to be able to save a child’s life. that has got to be up there on the “things to do before you die” list.
just thinking about it… wow. i can’t even begin to grasp the enormity of what you do every day. the level of responsibility. not sure what to say - i imagine something like saving the life of a child must make it all worthwhile. and as the mother of a little girl, i am ever so grateful that there are people like you out there.
going back to my dark little corner so i can re-evaluate how comparatively miniscule my life problems have been thus far. 
right after i go look in on my little one.
sheesh. it hit me like a ton of bricks, how absolutely inane and selfish my rant was. 
Susanna, your “rant” was not in the least inane. Your husband is doing important, in fact vital, work, and you support him all the time - you know you do. That doesn’t mean that sometimes you can’t wish things were at least a little different. I have huge respect for servicemen and women (including police officers) and their spouses. They face enormous challenges, they serve willingly and ably, they don’t get much chance to complain. Don’t be so hard on yourself. None of us like it when our plans get changed, and when they get completely turned upside down like your week did, I think we’d all do some pretty serious griping.
Merry Christmas!
Mary
on call (otherwise I would NOT be posting at 0010 on 12/24)
Oh my I didn’t think it was selfish I posted what I posted because if you are honest and do not want to do a job that you will be called out with then rethinking it is better than being like some people who are Docs and Nurses that complain and are down right nasty on call. It’s a shame people are like that because they Hate what they do.
Good Luck.
Thanks for the encouraging word.
jeffc