Late one Friday night while walking the long and lonely hallways of my hospital, my mind wandered back several years. I recalled my first weekend call as an eager, newly minted nephrology attending. I had met one of my colleagues earlier that morning in the doctors’ lounge, whereupon I had been handed a clunky, black weekend pager. “Welcome to being on call every fourth weekend for the rest of your life,” he had said as the pager ceremoniously exchanged hands.
Many things have changed since then. I am now doing call every third weekend and not every fourth, thanks to the overall physician shortage and the current unattractiveness of nephrology as a specialty. However, I confess that I was a little bit taken aback by his statement at that time, as I felt I had done enough call in my training years to know what it entailed.
Of course, I soon discovered that call as an attending in private practice was a different ballgame altogether. I was often the only physician who saw the patients the entire duration of their hospital stay as we were an admitting service in addition to consulting. Some days and many nights panic would set in. “I must be missing something; I will end up killing someone, they can’t let me do this.” I had gone through a tough medical school, a grueling residency, and subsequent fellowship, but imposter syndrome would often rear its ugly head. The way I dealt with all of these issues was to work hard, read more, ask questions and consult outside experts if needed.
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