Results from the CMA's 2001 Physician Resource Questionnaire (PRQ) indicate that 74% of Canadian physicians either take or share call. Physicians in the 35–44 age group are most likely to take call (83%), while those aged 65 and older are least likely (42%). Eighty-six percent of surgical specialists take call, compared with 76% of medical specialists and 69% of GP/FPs.
Among physicians who take call, surgical specialists are almost twice as likely as GP/FPs to record more than 180 hours of shared call per month (25% compared with 13%); 14% of medical specialists report more than 180 hours of shared call in an average month. Rural physicians who take call are somewhat more likely to put in longer hours than their urban colleagues: 23% report over 180 shared-call hours in an average month, compared with 15% of urban physicians.
Physicians in rural practice also tend to see more patients during their call rotations, with 49% indicating that they attend more than 40 patients a month while on call, compared with 25% of physicians in urban practice. Thirty-eight percent of doctors under age 35 report attending to more than 40 patients while on call in an average month, compared with 27% overall. Not surprisingly, physicians who see more patients while on call tend to spend more time providing medical services; 37% of rural physicians and 31% of physicians under age 35 report spending more than 40 hours per month attending to on-call patients, a figure that drops to 27% when all physicians are considered.
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Shelley Martin
shelley.martin@cma.ca
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