An on-call room, sometimes referred to as the doctors' mess, is a room in a hospital with either a

couch A couch, also known as a sofa, settee, or chesterfield, is a cushioned item of furniture for seating multiple people (although it is not uncommon for a single person to use a couch alone). It is commonly found in the form of a bench with u ...

or a bunkbed intended for staff to rest in while they are on call or due to be. In the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

, the 2003 extension of the working time directive to junior doctors and the ruling that on-call time counts as working hours has resulted in the introduction of shift work for hospital medical staff, thereby eliminating the requirements for on-call rooms. A similar change in hospital working hours for interns was implemented in the United States in 2011, but senior residents continue to do 24-hour call.

Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is the body responsible for accrediting all graduate medical training programs (i.e., internships, residencies, and fellowships, a.k.a. subspecialty programs) for physicians in the ...

regulations require that residents on call be provided with "adequate sleep facilities" which are "safe, quiet, and private."

See also

References

Further reading