scheduling call help

Specialties Operating Room

Published

Hi-

I was wondering how other hospitals handle call. We are getting upset we have to take so much call. Right now we are on call or in house every 3rd weekend, plus once a week. We only take 6 hour shifts on weekends and have to do two 6hour shifts every 3 weeks (one sat. one sunday) It is very hard for circulators to give away call. I think we should do 24hour shifts or at least 12 hour so we do not have to ruin so many weekends. We split call between 13 or so circulators. The techs dont seem to have it as bad because we have alot more techs. Alot of the older nurses refuse to do 12 hour or wont even consider 24 hour call.

I wanted to know how you guys handle the call schedule. There has to be a better way. Also we do not self schedulte.:angryfire

Hi, on this topic I have a wrench to throw in. Our OR has cases all day and then suddenly the DON "TELLS" us we have to cover for OB's S-sections at night since they have no staff and no one on call at all there. All travelers they say. Some days we work 17 hours or even 20 hours . We do our 12 or 14 then have to pick up their sections(none of which yet have been truly emergent!).

Burining us out quickly. Anyone else do this?

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

If we have to cover for OB's sections, we have a second call string for that. Only sections we cover are the stat or emergent ones. We had one OB who would find a reason to make it emergent, although the reasons were flimsy. Incident reports were written.

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Specializes in OR.
Hi, on this topic I have a wrench to throw in. Our OR has cases all day and then suddenly the DON "TELLS" us we have to cover for OB's S-sections at night since they have no staff and no one on call at all there. All travelers they say. Some days we work 17 hours or even 20 hours . We do our 12 or 14 then have to pick up their sections(none of which yet have been truly emergent!).

Burining us out quickly. Anyone else do this?

We don't have to cover their call and thank God we don't have to-there was a big controversy one night. We got a call from the DON on the OB unit. They had a section and wanted us to send someone up because their call person "didn't feel like coming in" WHAT??? Since when is call optional? My supervisor pretty much told them tough luck. They will beg us periodically for someone to cover OB call but it is not mandatory. I hate going up there because their sterile technique is atrocious...I've started a whole other thread about it somewhere...
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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
I hate going up there because their sterile technique is atrocious...I've started a whole other thread about it somewhere...

Me too. There are a few people at ours that have it together, but they actually have one woman there who complains and curses when someone tells her she's contaminated something (and she does it a lot, and yes there's a paper trail), slamming the cabinet door and stomping outside to go scrub again. I'm sorry, if someone JUST doesn't get it that something going from sterile to contaminated is a BAD thing, then they have no business working in a sterrile environment.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Case Management, OR.

We're on call one weekend every 8-10 weeks (call starts Friday afternoon until 0700 Monday). We take call one weeknight a week (no call the week you are/were on call over the weekend). We get $2/hour for carrying a pager and then 4 hours of regular pay if we get called in. Most of our cases are less than 4 hours long.

Some weekends are quiet, some are crazy. Depends on the moon, I swear!

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Specializes in surgical, emergency.

Being on call is part of the job, like it or not, at least in my little corner of the world.

I put up with it when I was a kid, and my mom was on.....and my kids learned to live with it, with me.

Our friends are shocked when my wife and I show up in the same vehicle!!!

Right now, at my hospital, our call team is a RN, Scrub Tech, and a PACU RN.

We are on a 5 week rotation. One weekend out of 5, starting at 7am Sat. and ending 7 am Monday. Usually we have no call the week following our weekend.

Normally we have at least one night 3:30 pm, to 7 am, (1530-0700 for you military time fans).

Also if the schedule permits, the post call people are first out.

Do I wish I didn't have call...sure. But again, that's part of being an OR nurse!!

Mike

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