Home Call

[spaz]

Huh, I'm surprised at some of the answers. My husband answers and talks on the phone in bed so yeah, I don't get any sleep on call nights either. We take separate cars, but generally we don't make plans together on days he is on call. We are at home. If it is a church day, then yes separate cars.

[mommax3]

I guess I should say that we don't make "plans" per se when he is on call, but during the school year, it is likely that one of the boys has a game or meet or another event that DH wants to attend, but we don't ride in the same car (and honestly, he is usually coming straight from work anyway).

[alison]

Home call is basically the same as in-house for dh! We just go about our business as usual at home, and assume he's not going to be around.

[v-girl]

DH is on home call for 1-2 weeks at a time. He rarely has to go in and never right away so we don't alter plans. He sleeps in our room and if he's paged at a bad time — like during Mass — he'll wait to answer unless it's a "needs an answer right this moment" kind of call.


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[Phoebe]

DH started home call with his new job in November. We just started living together again so this is my first experience with 100% home call. He used to have in-house and occasional home call when it was for transports. He has been on-call three times this week already. He definitely didn't sleep as well on-call. The hospital actually just calls his cell phone so he doesn't get paged. So far he has been sleeping on the couch during call nights because that is where he has slept for the past 8 months when he lived alone. He gets called in for admissions, etc. He is actually at one right now. He missed dinner once this week already and missed putting the kids to bed tonight. I just go about my business and expect he won't be there. We sometimes take separate cars, but it depends on what we are doing. DH is very close to the hospital from our rental house. We permanent house is a little farther away so it may change how we handle things when it is completed. So far it hasn't been too bad. It is way better than living apart!

[GreyhoundsRUs]

DH has a call room at the hospital, so what we do now is different than what we will do in fellowship. Right now, he stays home until he's paged and then stays at the hospital the rest of the night. There have been 1 or 2 days total where he has had nothing, and maybe another 1 or 2 where he didn't get paged until very late. He usually doesn't even come home or he just does for a quick meal. For fellowship, there is no call room, so he will probably get lots of pages/trips back and forth. He'll still sleep in our bed and answer calls bedside. We don't really go out when he's on call.

[scarlett09]

Ummm, DH never had home call during residency. They always took call at the hospital. The closest thing he had to "home call" was mommy call. People called an after-hours nurse line for the clinics affiliated with the hospital. If it was an issue the nurses couldn't rectify, they would page the resident on call. The resident would call the nurse back, get the scoop, and then call the person with the issue directly. On the nights he had mommy call, we would sleep in the same bed. When the pager went off, I would wake up but he would take and make calls in our guest bedroom. I generally fell back asleep after he got up and left with the noisy pager. Never had to worry about separate cars or ruined plans. There is no home call in this job either.


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[alotofyarn]

GRU - we're thinking about doing the same thing, where he'll come home until he's called, and then stay in the call room the rest of the night.

[MAPPLEBUM]

GRU - we're thinking about doing the same thing, where he'll come home until he's called, and then stay in the call room the rest of the night.

I'm surprised more people in hubby's program don't do that. Even if they live close to the hospital. That feeling of letdown whenever he's just walked in the door and gets paged. It happens way more than you'd think.

Well, actually that might have changed since one of the 2nd years bought a flat screen TV and a used couch for the resident's room. The one and only time I brought dinner to hubby on a call night that particular resident was still there, lounging on the couch and cruising youtube videos. I'm glad they've made it more comfortable for themselves even if it means I see my husband a little less

[alotofyarn]

One of the hospitals owns a hotel that's attached, so I think their call room is actually one of the hotel rooms. He'll cover 3 different hospitals when he's on the other service though, so that will be more of a pain.

[MDPhDWife]

All call is home call for DH (with the exception of intern year) and we rarely make plans. He'll attend school and sports events for the kids though and if it's out of the way to the hospital we'll take separate cars, otherwise we'll take the same car and I'll just drop him off.

We sleep in the same bed and I've grown accustomed to sleeping through the pager. DH quietly returns the calls in our master bath or kitchen. Sometimes he'll return it from bed but I typically sleep through it.

I really love home call! It's only busy a little more than half the time. Now that DH is a senior he's on back up call and it's been much quieter. *knock on wood*. Damn it, why do I feel like I just jinxed myself?

[rain_dancer]

Well, actually that might have changed since one of the 2nd years bought a flat screen TV and a used couch for the resident's room. The one and only time I brought dinner to hubby on a call night that particular resident was still there, lounging on the couch and cruising youtube videos. I'm glad they've made it more comfortable for themselves even if it means I see my husband a little less

Sounds like a nice set-up! DH has q3 in-house call for the next 5 (uggggh) years, then home call his chief year. Their call room has an old couch, but I have heard nuuuumberous stories of things happening in that call room that would make me hesitant to even sit on that thing (and I've seen their *magazine* under the cushions firsthand...gross). I hope my hubby at least makes sure the bedsheets are clean, although he's probably always too tired to care.

[MAPPLEBUM]

Sounds like a nice set-up! DH has q3 in-house call for the next 5 (uggggh) years, then home call his chief year. Their call room has an old couch, but I have heard nuuuumberous stories of things happening in that call room that would make me hesitant to even sit on that thing (and I've seen their *magazine* under the cushions firsthand...gross). I hope my hubby at least makes sure the bedsheets are clean, although he's probably always too tired to care.

yuck! What is his specialty again? I simply cannot imagine any of the residents in DH's program doing anything like that in their office. They're all such nerds!!

[wiva]

This is backwards for us. As a cath lab nurse, I take call one night a week and do about a weekend a month. I have to stay within 30 minutes of the hospital (realistically 20, since our "30" minute response time includes getting scrubbed and set up). We have a pretty busy lab, so we get called in fairly frequently.

Yes, we take separate cars places and don't roam far. I don't go grocery shopping when I'm on call (or do any shopping that is at all involved). He doesn't wear earplugs or sleep in a different room, just deals with the pager since he can get back to sleep quickly. I don't take my son places, and when we go as a family my son rides with him. We almost never go to dinner when I'm on call unless it's 'fast' food (Panera or something where I can grab and go). When the roles are reversed (he'll take back up call from home in 3rd year), I imagine it will be the same. Living in a fairly active and populated city, the another challenge is making sure we know what community events are going on so that I can plan routes to the hospital if I get a page.

[rain_dancer]

yuck! What is his specialty again? I simply cannot imagine any of the residents in DH's program doing anything like that in their office. They're all such nerds!!

Neurosurgery. Sadly, I could imagine some of DH's co-residents, um....taking advantage of the call room. Don't want to imagine that, but I can.