When on call, housestaff benefit from complete ancillary support and a senior resident who functions as a Medical Consultant. The hospital provides free meals on call, including pizza on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Intern call rooms are private rooms with shower facilities located in close proximity to patient care areas. Junior and senior residents have rooms in the Resident Call Suite. Built in 2001, this suite includes a lounge with a television, vending area, computers, and classrooms. Individual resident call rooms are equipped with a computer, television and shower facility. We are more than willing to assist resident couples in coordinating their call schedules.

Call Schedule FAQ

Current workhours regulations are carefully adhered to at OSUMC.  Based on the different needs of our patient populations, we have constructed a hybrid model of call and night team for our residents and patients.  This call structure is summarized below.

To minimize handoffs, which are increasingly recognized as causing almost as many errors as does physician fatigue, we have designed a day team/night team system.  Regular inpatient ward teams on general medicine and subspecialty services manage their patients from 7 AM to 6 PM each week day and until work rounds are finished on weekends and holidays.  At 6 PM, a dedicated night team appears and assumes responsibility for the ongoing management of the patients. This night team is assigned for the month to the same set of day teams, so that they become familiar with that team’s patients and patterns of care.  Night teams work Sunday through Thursday night and have the weekend off.

Night Team Patient Care Rounds:  In addition to responding to unexpected events, night teams also do formal work rounds on the sickest of patients identified by their day peers, conducting an independent evaluation and writing notes to move the patient’s care along. 

Night Team Teaching Rounds:  The night time medical consultant is a senior resident who is responsible for leading work and teaching rounds for the night team. A dedicated night team curriculum focuses on common night calls. A common source of education is the post code briefing sessions, led by the MC or the chief residents.

Night Team Evaluations:  Night team members get feedback on their evaluations and write ups from their day team attendings.

Night Team:  Whats in a name?  While you may catch us “slipping” and referring to this rotation as “Night Float”, we emphasize that those working at night are not simply babysitting patients but are providing essential patient care that contributes significantly to the patient’s experience and outcome, and that this care is delivered by a team—with members of the night team and day team working together.  The educational experience at night is a valuable component of the overall curriculum.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the day teams revert to traditional overnight call, admitting patients throughout the night and then leaving post call by noon the following day.  Teams that are not on call on Saturday or Sunday leave after they have finished their work rounds and patient care activities, typically between 11 AM and 12 noon.