On Call

Do you all have House Charge nurses? We have one per shift who, on top of their regular floor assignment, handles issues during the shift and will call the D.O.N. if necessary.

They also handle moving people around on the schedule as directed by the scheduler if (when) someone calls out thereby greatly cutting down on the (sometimes rather silly) phone calls to the D.O.N./A.D.O.N. You all need to sleep, too, contrary to popular belief.

Back in the day when I was a floor nurse for 10 years or so, I would have been lucky to call the DON/on call nurse a total of 3 times max. It was just something one didn't do unless dire emergency. Luckily, in my current position, the nurses I inherited were well trained. I get calls about things I want to know about and rarely get bugged for stupid things. My night nurses have learned I will sleep right thru a text (which they'll send as an FYI, such as an expected death occurred) but also know that they have to call if they need me to respond.

We have a house supervisor at all times. We have a specific list of "When to notify DON and administrator". If you call for something dumb you better go find some lube for the ass reaming you're gonna get!