Fellowship/home call

Well, my DH has been a fellow for about a week now and it's been pretty intense! He is getting home pretty late, anywhere from 7 to 8:30. And he has been taking home call so all weekend he was getting paged. He got paged at all hours of the night, including 1 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. Every time it wakes me up as I am not used to the high pitched pager and then him getting up and making calls and then coming back to bed wide awake. For those with experience with this -- does it get easier? Any tips on sleeping through the damn pager?? I suppose it's better than him sleeping at the hospital but it's very disruptive! And our apartment is so small -- I don't know what we'll do when we start to have kids! It seems unfair to have children suffer through the pager, too.

Otherwise the learning curve (ID fellowship) seems pretty steep and he is feeling a bit overwhelmed. He is taking the boards in August but has the whole month off so he should be OK. I will be happy when things settle down a bit.

Thanks for any advice.
Jill

[mommax3]

I have learned to sleep through the pager, but it took a while. DH only had home call for the last year of his residency, and it was for GYN cases only, (he had in-house call for obstetric cases) so I had no experience with the pager going off at all hours of the night until he finished residency.

My only advice is to ask him to call in from another room in the apartment so that you don't get woken up by hearing his end of the conversation. I can (usually) get back to sleep after hearing the pager, but not if I hear "How many weeks are you?" "Which baby is this for you?" "How far apart are they?" etc. because I start thinking about what he is saying and trying to gauge by his end of the conversation if he is going to have to go in.

It is nice to have them home, but not so nice that they have to bring the pager with them!


Sally

[PrincessFiona]

ID Fellowship

Jill,

ID Fellowship was a big shock for us too...We really anticipated it being much easier than it was...in many ways I found it to be worse than IM ever was. We lived under that illusion that home call meant less call and that because he was now a 'fellow' he'd be home more often. Instead, we lived through the crazy go to work early, get home late cycle most of the time. He was paged when we were in Wal-Mart, had a moment out as a family at McDonalds....I HATED it! I can't tell you how many times I stood alone in the grocery store or somewhere else with the kids while he 'ran real quick' to the hospital after getting paged.

When he was in the lab, he even brought his experiments (rats )home wiht him sometimes. He had to count the ones that died every couple of hours and so we took turns doing it during the night YUCK!

What I will say is that lab months are better...and I'm sure your dh will have to have the lab experience too. We did, however switch from the 3 year research to the 2 year clinical plan when we realized that we just couldn't DO IT anymore and we were lucky that that worked out. However, ID fellowships require a certain amount of time in the lab w/ publications. The problem then was less time than it was the learning curve in the lab, the politics in place, etc...but those months were the ones we lived for. A month in the lab meant he was usually home MUCH earlier and was often in a better state of mind.

Hang in there...the first few months are the hardest...once he gets his bearings and is more comfortable (and you adjust to the schedule ) it will seem easier.

Is he doing the 3 or 2 year program?

kris

[SueC]

This was me last year--my husband is a second year fellow and I assure you it does get better. That first year, especially the first few months, reminded me of intern year. I eventually began to sleep through the pager and just didn't plan anything that included my husband on call weekends. After the first few months, either it became less intense or I just became used to it because by the end of the year the craziness didn't bother me that much. And so far, the second year is peachy!

Thanks for all of your responses!

I guess I will learn to live with the pager. He has been leaving the room to make the calls but the first few nights he forgot to shut the door so I could hear everything. I also get curious about the calls...I'm sure that won't last for long, especially when I am exhausted.

Kris, he's doing a two-year clinical program...there is some research and paper writing involved but it is mostly clinical. I can't imagine if he brought home rats!!! I think I would die. Now that you mention it I remember him once saying something about one of the attending's research projects that involved rats. So I guess it's possible that he could work with rats for his research project but I hope not!

Tonight he didn't get home until after 9 -- I just can't wait for things to settle down so he can relax a little...

[HeartRN]

My husband sometimes doesn't hear the pager go off, so I wind up handing him the phone and the pager in my sleep! I think I've gotten pretty good at snoozing through it most of the time, but since I'm a nurse, I find a lot of the calls interesting/amusing. Hang in there, and I would just request he return the calls from another room if it is difficult to get back to sleep.

[Meenah]

I'm alos a nurse and very used to shift work, etc. My husband is in solo practice, Pulmonary/Critical Care so he is on call 24/7 unless he makes special arrangements. I can sleep through everything. He has been doing this for 17 years and loves it, and never minds the middle of the night calls. Hang in there, it will become second nature to you.
Luanne