The objective of on-call activities is to provide residents with continuity of patient care experiences throughout a 24-hour period. In-house call is defined as those duty hours beyond the normal workday when residents are required to be immediately available in the assigned institution.

Continuous on-site duty, including in-house call, does not exceed 24 consecutive hours. Residents may remain on duty for up to four additional hours to participate in didactic activities, transfer care of patients, conduct outpatient clinics, and maintain continuity of medical and surgical care as defined in Specialty and Subspecialty Program Requirements.

No new patients, as defined in Specialty and Subspecialty Program Requirements, may be accepted after 24 hours of continuous duty. A new patient is defined as any patient for whom the surgery service or department has not previously provided care.

There is one day of in-house call per week for the Pediatric Surgery resident and the PGY-4. For residents junior to this level, in-house call occurs no more frequently than every third night, averaged over a four-week period. The residents must comply with duty hour restrictions by leaving the hospital no later than four hours after call ends, accepting no new patients during this four-hour period, and not returning to the hospital for at least ten hours.

At-home call (pager call) is defined as call taken from outside the assigned institution. The frequency of at-home call is not subject to the every third night limitation. However, at-home call is not so frequent as to preclude rest and reasonable personal time for each resident. Residents taking at-home call are provided with one day in seven completely free from all educational and clinical responsibilities, averaged over a 4-week period.

When residents are called into the hospital from home, the hours residents spend in-house are counted toward the 80-hour limit.

The program director and the faculty monitor the demands of at-home call in the program and make scheduling adjustments as necessary to mitigate excessive service demands and/or fatigue.