what does it mean when someone says they are "post-call"?

[quickfeet]

? are they still on duty? What are they talking about?

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[Smurfette]

It means they were on call the previous night; if this was 'in-house' call, they have to go home by the time 30 hours has elapsed since they started their "shift".

 

[turkeyjerky]

2 uses are common. One, they mean that they were on call last night, are tired as hell and are just in the hospital to round and finish their $hit. "God, I'm post-call and I can't wait to get the F outta here!"

Second, and more applicable to students than residents, they mean they get the day off after being in the hospital overnight. "Yes! I'm post-call, who else wants to go to the amusement park"

 

[jdh71]

It means they were on call the previous night; if this was 'in-house' call, they have to go home by the time 30 hours has elapsed since they started their "shift".

It's 28 hours now

 

[jdh71]

2 uses are common. One, they mean that they were on call last night, are tired as hell and are just in the hospital to round and finish their $hit. "God, I'm post-call and I can't wait to get the F outta here!"

Second, and more applicable to students than residents, they mean they get the day off after being in the hospital overnight. "Yes! I'm post-call, who else wants to go to the amusement park"

With the new hours and a lot of night float systems, often these days "post-call" simply means your team is not taking any admission "hits" that day, which means you round, finish your work, and check out. Not bad.

 

[justdoit31]

With the new hours and a lot of night float systems, often these days "post-call" simply means your team is not taking any admission "hits" that day, which means you round, finish your work, and check out. Not bad.

This is pretty much how it is at my school. We take call q4 in IM and it's from 7am-9pm you take all admissions to the IM service until you cap (believe it's around 10 new patient) then you "hit" other teams with any more. So post call for us is usually pre-round and round in the morning (usually attending rounds start at 7am post call) then my resident usually lets me go around lunch while he finishes any paperwork (since it's my first rotation I am just doing progress notes, discharge notes, and writing orders, anything else the resident does).

 

[coldweatherblue]

OP: when i was on IM, "post-call" meant, our team was in the hospital on-call from 0800 one day til 0800 the next day, taking any admits in that time. The post-call day consisted of prerounding at 0600 or so after 1-2 hours of sleep, presenting all the new patients to the attending, rounding til noon or so, then finishing up floor work and getting the hell out of there. the rest of the day usually involved eating a massive meal, watching an hour of tv then sleeping for 16 hours.

 

[ShyRem]

That sounds more like post call.