How does on call work?

[jarielle22]

Hello all! I have been a night shift ER nurse for over 3 years and I recently got a job offer for day shift as an interventional radiology nurse! It's really exciting, it what's not as exciting is the on-call shift I keep hearing about. From what it sounds like I would be on-call 8-10 shifts in the month and I work regularly 4 10 hour shifts. I just have a question for those who do on-call and how it typically works. I plan to ask more questions with the manager as well. I also live 30 minutes from the hospital and I get maybe 30-45 minutes to get there. I really want this position I just hope it is the right fit! I hear they've had issues with employees and the on call situation. 8-10 on call shift a months that like 2-3 shifts week. Is that a lot? And is it typical to get called in often?

Sorry so so many questions! As an ER nurse I usually just work my 3 shifts a week so this is a diffeeent world for me, but I'm very interested!

Thanks all!!

Sincerely,

jenna ?

[jarielle22]

My hospital sounds like the size of yours and I do believe we are a stroke center.

That's what I need to figure out. We do have rad call ins so I need to differentiate and see how much a nurse is really called in. It's hard to say, my manager started out in IR over at this facility and has been there for 10 years, but I am not sure about the other nurses how long the have been there. I will definitely get a better feel once I start orientation as far as the turnover with cases and how things are. I hope it's not as bad as I think it is and it's manageable! Thank you so much for your reply! You've been so thorough and will definitely keep this in mind when working!

[jarielle22]

Okay so boss lady cleared it up! I'm on call after my shifts during the week until morning (Monday-Thursday or Friday depending on which day I have off) and I am on call every other weekend (so not every weekend)! The one constant say I get off every week I won't be on call.

This doesn't seem as terrible as I was expecting and I'm glad I am not on call every weekend! That was a fear of mine!

[Lennonninja, MSN, APRN, NP]

So I just changed from ICU to IR this year and am taking call for the first time. We have 8 RNs in our department, 5 Rad Techs.

Because we have 8 nurses, we each take call every 8th weekend (Friday 5pm - Monday 6am), and 1 holiday per year. The Rad Techs are more on frequent call since there's fewer of them.

Every 8 weeks I have 6 weekday evenings of call (5pm - 6am), so I have 2 weeks out of every 8 with no call at all. I never have more than one weeknight per week unless I pick up someone else's call.

Rad Techs get called in for everything we do except paracentesis & thoracentesis procedures, those are MD & RN only. If it's just a bedside central line placement in off hours, the RN has the option to not come in.

I've only been doing this 4 months so far, and the times I've been on call, I'm more likely to have to stay late and finish up late cases. I've only had to come in at 3am once.

We do IR, CT procedures, Ultrasound, and Xray procedures (mostly LPs) and we don't get called in too often. Call pay is $2/hour and if you get called in, time and a half, for a minimum of 3 hours worth of pay, even if you don't work the full 3 hours.

Edited to add - We are not yet combined with Cath Lab/EP but we will be in a few years. Lord only knows what will happen to call when that happens... We are a stroke center, but we do not do any interventions in our IR above the clavicle basically. My only 3am call was CT guided neph tubes for hydro. Some weekends nothing happens at all, and some weekends you're there the whole time, but at least it's only every 8th! They try not to call us in if it can wait until the next day.

[jarielle22]

Wow!! Thanks so much for the details! Yeah we are a stroke center and we are a 422 bed hospital so pretty big. I think we have about 8 nurses maybe 10. My on call is 4 days a week after my shift from 6p-7a and every other weekend I'm on call. I'm not sure how much nurses truly get called in because our rad techs typically do too. I guess that will come to me based on more experience. So we will see! How are you liking IR? Are you enjoying it?