Call, and Other Trivialities

Anesthesia's workweek is very different from that of medicine. When I was on medicine, there was little differentiation between weekdays and weekends because patients get admitted to the hospital every day. There are fewer didactic sessions on weekends, but we still make our rounds and take care of our patients. On the other hand, anesthesia is a very weekday heavy specialty. All scheduled surgeries happen on weekdays, and we are available only for emergency operations and airway emergencies on weekends. Because of that, my schedule is pretty heavy Monday to Friday, but fairly light on the weekends. Even when I take in house call, the days tend to be a lot lighter than they were on medicine.

At the VA, we take first and second call several times a week (it is different at other hospitals). Being second call means that we stay until there are only two operating rooms open. Being first call means we stay until the end of the day and remain in house with the airway pager. This call system allows us to have some assurance that we will end at a reasonable time when we are not on call because even if we are assigned to a long surgery, one of the call residents will relieve us at the end of the day.