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Medicine vocabulary · Hospital Departments and Staff

On call

Meaning in medicine, with examples

phraseCore term

In medicine, on call means: Available to be contacted and to come and help if needed, especially outside normal working hours, such as at night or at weekends.

In Turkish: nöbetçi, nöbette, icap nöbetinde

How it is used

Doctors are on call, do on-call shifts and call the on-call registrar or on-call surgeon. It takes a hyphen before a noun: 'the on-call team'. Being on call may mean staying in the hospital or being reachable from home.

Example sentences

  1. Who's the surgeon on call tonight?

  2. I'm on call this weekend, so I can't come to the dinner.

Common collocations

  • on-call doctor
  • on-call shift
  • be on call
  • on-call rota
  • call the on-call team
  • handoverThe passing of information and responsibility for patients from one doctor or team to the next, usually when a shift changes.
  • residentIn the US and Canada, a doctor who has finished medical school and is doing several years of supervised training in a specialty in a hospital.
  • consultantIn the UK and some other countries, a senior hospital doctor who has finished specialist training and has final responsibility for a team's patients.
  • emergency departmentThe hospital department, open 24 hours a day, that treats people with sudden illness or injury who need urgent care.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Hospital Departments and Staff

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.