Home call during nephrology fellowship: Burden or benefit?

Home call is one of the factors that can influence physician wellness. Nephrology fellows at the University of Wisconsin tracked home call activities in an attempt to quantify the impact of sleep to identify areas for improvement.

Each of the 6 nephrology fellows filled out a daily survey between November 9, 2020, and January 31, 2021, to address total hours, quality of sleep, and if the fellows reported to the hospital.

The average amount of sleep per night was 5.3 hours. When necessary to report to the hospital (50%), the average hours of sleep dropped to 4.3 hours. However, if not called in, sleep increased to 5.8 hours per night. Sleep quality during night call was described as restful for 55% of nights.

Obtaining an understanding of how a call can impact a learner is essential to making decisions about programmatic structural changes. Programs might use this data to compare their programs when making decisions about call structure. Hospital culture or overnight management changes can be made to impact the number of phone calls or needs to report to the hospital.