Junior ICU Call
Junior Residents Regarding 'On-Call' Requirements
You will be expected to do a minimum of six on-call days/nights per month during your ICU rotation. ‘On-call’ involves a 24-hour call period, and several hours the next day for handover rounds in the morning. On most days you will be off by 10:00 AM for a well-deserved rest.
This means that there may be times when there are two residents on call at a time. You will both have pagers, but only one of you will have the cardiac arrest pager. One resident will be designated first call and carry the arrest pager while the other resident will be designated second call. When the call schedule is made we will try to ensure an even distribution of first calls so that everyone has an opportunity to respond to cardiac arrests. At night you should divide up the responsibilities for the unit, for example by each taking certain bays. To avoid confusion please make sure that you identify which patients you will be responsible for by marking it on our white board, and letting the nurses in the bays know that you are covering for their patients.
The first call resident will end up fielding calls for pre-arrests and other consults. When the first call resident gets busy they should call the second call resident to help out. A collaborative approach to sharing the workload will result in the best experience for all residents.
If you are a PGY1 doing a rotation within the ICU you are expected to do six on-call days/ nights per month in a second call capacity (i.e., you will always do ‘buddy’ call with a junior resident).
In the morning you will be expected to present the patients that you cared for overnight in morning rounds.
Once again, if you have any questions – just let us know
