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Inpatient Teaching Services
 At Memorial University Medical Center, general medicine call is every fourth night. There are four medicine ward teams, and four internal medicine general ward services (yellow, red, blue, and green). The internal medicine ward services are comprised of an attending, a resident, two interns, one to two medical students, and occasionally a pharmacy or physician assistant student. The ward teams take call every fourth night from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. the next day. The interns are assigned either "first call” or "second call" designation. The first and second call interns admit patients from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Every other call, one of these interns is allowed to leave at 7 p.m. as the night float intern arrives. We fully comply with ACGME requirements for residency training programs with particular attention to the number of weekly hours and admissions allowed for each intern/resident. After a team caps, any further admissions are done by the night float resident and intern. All members of the house staff are given one day off per week on average.
Night Float
The Department of Internal Medicine has developed a resident night float system. Sunday through Thursday nights from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. are covered by an upper-level resident assigned to the night float service. Night float takes the place of the on-call resident, allowing him/her to go home at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights are shared by upper-level residents assigned to no-call rotations. This system is strongly supported by the house staff. Currently, we have one night float intern. There is a strong likelihood that we will have two night float interns in 2010. This will nearly eliminate 24-hour shifts on our general medicine ward teams.
PGY-1
The PGY-1 residents take call while assigned to internal medicine wards. Call is every fourth night, in house, and runs from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. PGY-1 residents assigned to the critical care rotation take call every fourth night.
PGY-2 and PGY-3
The PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents take overnight in-house call while on the night float rotation from Sunday through Thursday, 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents assigned to critical care rotation take call every fourth night.
Subspecialty/Elective Rotations
Residents on subspecialty services do not take in-house call. Generally, the resident will take call with the respective subspecialist and pick up any new patients admitted overnight in the morning.
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