Home Call

[alotofyarn]

Hubby starts home call next week. Give me your tips for surviving!

If you go out, do you take separate cars? Does the pager wake you up? Does he sleep in a separate room, or do you wear earplugs? Does he leave the room when he gets paged, or does he respond from bed? Anything else I need to know??

[ladymoreta]

We take separate cars. He sleeps in our room, and he goes into the bathroom and closes the door to talk on the phone.

We usually don't make plans for call days, and often he just brings home take-out so we can eat quickly and I don't have a lot of clean up if he gets called back in.

ETA - I also keep a frozen pizza on hand for those times when "I'll be home in 20 minutes" turns into an hour or more and I need to feed the kids quickly.

[MrsC]

We always take separate cars if DH is on home call. He sleeps on the couch because he's afraid the beeper won't wake him if he's comfy in a bed but that's just him being overcautious. It depends on the type of call but if you want to sleep, have him sleep in the guest room. Good luck! I hate home call.

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[MAPPLEBUM]

Hubby starts home call next week. Give me your tips for surviving!

If you go out, do you take separate cars? Does the pager wake you up? Does he sleep in a separate room, or do you wear earplugs? Does he leave the room when he gets paged, or does he respond from bed? Anything else I need to know??

Oo, this will be an interesting thread to read!

For one, hubby's call is VERY busy. And unlike many other programs he doesn't get the next day off. Say call is on Thursday, he goes in like normal at 7am and usually doesn't get a break until between 12-3am. The norm is for him to get some sleep at or after 3am. He'll catch a few hours of sleep, many times getting paged throughout, but regardless is back to the grind again at 7am the next day. So of course those nights he just doesn't even come home. It's an exception when he gets to spend time at home. More than an hour? Awesome! All night? Rare bird. I can definitely count the times that's happened on one maybe two hands. The hospital is in the suburbs so if he's still swamped in the wee hours of the night he usually just stays at the hospital. Especially knowing he has a full day of work the next day. Sometimes he sneaks in at 1-3AM but usually no. Since finding this site I've successfully trained him to let me know if he's really busy and when he's decided he won't come home. So whether or not we go out / take separate cars isn't even relevant. If he's on call and somehow miraculously at home chances are he's going to go to bed really early knowing the odds that he'll get paged sooner than later.

Because he's gone for so much of the call I'm just happy when he can come lay down next to me. Yea the pager is annoying but he's not home enough for it to override my desire to be with him. I haven't formed any rules. When he's in bed the pager is next to him, I've never thought of putting in earplugs, he always leaves the room to take the call because 98% of the time that means he's got to get up and go to the hospital.

As with any new phase in this process the first 6 months of call were VERY stressful. I'm not sure if it will ever stop being so, but at least it's lessened. I generally don't sleep well on call nights regardless. It's still quite disorienting for me to wake up in the middle of the night all foggy and feel like I don't know where my husband is. My only consolation is at least I'm just the wife of the poor sucker who's been working 15+ hours!!

[SuzySunshine]

In residency he slept in the guest room if he got paged more then twice. I couldn't wear earplugs because then I couldn't hear the kids. Now I've learned to sleep through his pager but I think that is also because now that the kids are older I'm not as light of a sleeper. We have a large master bath off of our master BR, he goes in there to answer pages. In our residency house he just went into the LR so he wouldn't bother anyone else. We always take separate cars if we're going somewhere when he is on call, we rarely go out to eat though - that's just asking for me (and the kids sometimes) to get left at a restaurant. I cook dinner just like usual, eating at 6 or 6pm every night if he's home great, if he's not there is a plate for him. If he gets home and doesn't want leftovers (usually) there are frozen Bertoli type meals in the freezer he can always warm up. The kids often eat pizza, corn dogs or something easy on call nights.

[SoonerTexan]

Ha, I guess I should pay attention to this because apparently backup call for interns is scheduled during their vacation. I hope DH misunderstood.

[alotofyarn]

Mapplebum - he doesn't necessarily get the next day off either. Call is Q3, and supposedly generally pretty busy, so I don't expect to see much of him for the next 2 years (he has 2 years of primary call, then 2 years of backup - all Q3).

I generally do quick meals most nights anyway, because I work and E eats between 5 and 5:30, and I only have so many tricks for keeping her entertained while I prepare it. I almost never wait for him to eat, but I do put away leftovers for him. I do usually have meals or a pizza in the freezer too.

I probably won't sleep with earplugs, because I do need to hear E if she wakes up. I usually sleep through his alarm, so hopefully it will be the same with the pager.

[ides]

When dh is on home call we usually don't go out, but if we do we take separate cars unless we are going somewhere close. He sleeps in our bed and answers calls there or goes into his office. Due to his speciality and the fact he has residents taking first call he doesn't get a ton of calls and if he goes in its for an operation and he's there several hours. I carry on like its a normal day.

[OrionGrad]

We usually don't go out when DH is on home call, unless it's a quick trip for errands. (And even then DH usually spends the car ride answering pages.) He still sleeps in our bedroom. Quick calls are returned in bed (I don't mind), but he goes downstairs to the office to call attendings or have longer convos.
Although home call still sucks, it's much better than in-house call IMO.

[mommax3]

DH didn't have home call during residency, but he does now. We always take two cars if we go somewhere when he is on call, but we don't go far...no more than 20 minutes from the hospital. I usually sleep through the pager, but if it is a night with a lot of pages, DH will go to the guest room. To answer pages, he *quietly* leaves our room, goes to another room, and closes the door to that room before he answers. We have learned that although the pager doesn't usually wake me, doors closing and his voice will!

[Thirteen]

They had "home call", but we lived at least 45 min away, so it wasn't possible.


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[Mrs. MD, Esq.]

DH sleeps in the bedroom but takes calls in the living room. Generally, I only wake up for a second. We normally stay in on call nights and watch movies...

[migirl]

Although home call still sucks, it's much better than in-house call IMO.

Heh, DH hasn't had in-house call in years but I think I actually prefer it over home call. He gets all tense and stressed when he's on call (the attendings here take call a week at a time), so we end up taking the brunt of his pissy mood. Obviously a week-long in-house attending call doesn't make sense, but it would be nice if we didn't all have to deal with and tiptoe around his snippy mood.

We just don't make plans as a family when he's on call, the kids and I do our thing and he does his.


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[Pollyanna]

In home call here. Dh also does a week at a time. We really don't do anything different. We take the same car because we figure if dh needs to go in we can just drop him off and he can stay at the hospital (let's be honest, it's not like he would just have to go in for an hour or two, lol). No separate rooms. He answers pages in our bathroom and I rarely hear anything (if it doesn't pertain to me I sleep right through it). As busy as their service has been it would probably be easier for dh to stay at the hospital but it is nice to see him even if it's just for a short time during those weeks.

[corn poffi]

Most programs don't give you the day off after home call, FYI. It's coded differently, so they aren't required to. In-house call requires a post-call day.

We just make it work. He refuses to sleep in the extra room, but will sleep on the couch if it's a particularly busy night. We tend to not make plans on his home call days, unless it's a prearranged family event. In that case, we normally don't take separate cars, as he can drop me off on the way to the hospital.

Our urology residents are often seen out and about with their pagers, so I think their call is a bit more relaxed, at least at our institution. They also have great nurses, so that probably helps. YMMV