PACU call/ holiday requirements question

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Hi everyone,

I'm currently looking to switch from ICU to PACU and would like to get an idea of what everybody's call and weekend/ holiday requirements are. I realize this varies from hospital to hospital but I'd like to get an idea of what to expect.

I generally don't like being on call / not knowing if I'm gonna get called in or not but I realize this is part of the field. Just wanted to get a range of everyone's experience so I have an idea of what to expect.

Also if you can share how many weekends / holidays you typically cover that would be great as well.

thank you!

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

If you head over to the PACU forum under the specialties heading, you may be able to find a thread that discusses call there. It's definitely a forum full of info! I've asked to have this thread moved there for more relevant responses.

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I worked PACU for a smaller acute care hospital. I seldom took call because I worked with CRAZY nurses who loved the big bucks being on call added to their pay check.

They would be annoyed with me if I forgot who I had promised to give up my call to.

I have no idea if my situation was at all normal. I didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth ?.

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Totally depends on the individual unit. I've worked places with self sign up and a small few covered the vast majority of call and another place where its was assigned by a manager and good luck getting anyone to swap or cover you. It was almost a crime to ask.

It also depends a lot of the number and type of after hours cases your facility is covering. Part of why some people were so eager to take call at my first facility was the on call pay was really really good and you had a very high chance of being called in at least once. At the second place in a different state the pay was meh, and chances were you were just tied to being within 30 minutes not very likely to be called in.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Moved to the PACU forum

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I work at a small rural hospital. We do mostly same day procedures, some in patient. We have a general surgeon, ENT, ortho, OB, and urology. Call in seem to run hot and cold. Best estimate is I'm called 30-50% of the time. Call is scheduled on a rotation. There are six of us to cover the calendar. One nurse takes call every 6th weekend and one day during the week. Holidays are scheduled on a rotation also and it works out to 1 or 2 holidays a year.

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Specializes in PACU, ICU, OR, ODSC.

I work at a large trauma 1 hospital. From Sunday night-Thursday night 2100-0700 we have two nurses dedicated to that call only. It's nice because they get paid 40 hours regardless of how much they work (if they work more than 40 hours they get paid of course). So that leaves weekends. On Friday night call is from 2100-0700 Saturday night is 1900-0700. We also have weekend day call which is Saturday from 07-19 and Sunday which is 07-21. Usually have day or night call on a weekend a once a month. We all fight for call because we love money. 

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Larger hospital = more PACU staff = less call required

I work for a large trauma hospital and our usual call requirements are 1 week night and 1 weekend day per month. Might be more if a lot staff out on leave or unforeseen circumstances. Also, larger staff means more people that might want to pick up your call for more money.

 

Long story short, very unit specific! Reach out to someone in the unit you are thinking about transferring to to get a better idea of their call requirements. 

 

 

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