Intensive Care Department, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, King Abdulaziz Medical City, ICU 1425, PO Box 22490, Riyadh, 11426 K.S.A. arabi@ngha.med.sa
You are appointed director of a new large multi-discipline intensive care unit in an academic center. The hospital is affiliated with a medical school and as such there will be an adequate number of medical students, residents, and fellows (specializing in critical care) rotating through the unit. The unit will be a 'closed' (intensivist-led) model. In setting up the call schedule for the intensivists, you need to decide whether the mandate will be for the intensivists to provide 24/7 in-house coverage as opposed to off-hour coverage from home. You wonder about the sustainability of each model.