understanding a physician call schedule

Bigredmed
Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:02:24 +0000

In medicine, Q means every

So when you write an order as Qday, that means every day.

q9d, would be call every ninth day for a period of 12 months.

I’ve never seen a ratio like the 1:3 you’ve mentioned, but I would interpret that as a q4 schedule - 1 night call, 3 nights off, but perhaps one of the physicians on the board can clarify. Anything more frequent than q4 (assuming they work the maximum 30 hours straight when on call) for residents puts them over the work hour restrictions for that week, so they have to have a schedule the remaining portion of the month that averages to less than 80 hours a week.