Joanne Spindel RDCS,RVT
     Venice Hospital, Venice Florida
     
     In response to Norman Paley's  call set up, I would have become very 
     rich if I had been paid a minimum of 3 hours pay at time-and-a-half 
     for each call-in over the five years that I had taken 24 hour call. I  
     would have at least felt compensated for my dedicated efforts. At a 
     previous job, we were paid 2 dollars an hour once you punched out, 1 
     hour of time-and-a-half for each call-in and you could expect to be  
     called back 1-3 times each night, on top of working 10-14 hour days in 
     season.  This was usually divided between 2-3 techs.
     
     Burn-out rate was high for misuse of the on-call tech.  For the most 
     part, the ER physicians ranked high on our list for ordering venous 
     scans on patients who had leg pain for several mths, even years and 
     finally decided to do something about this around 2:00 in the morning.
     No acute symptoms or findings.  Next were the cardiologists that had 
     patients scheduled for early OR and forgot to order a carotid scan 
     with admission orders. Other physicians would order routine studies as 
     stat to have them at their convenience. However when the surgeons put 
     a page through which was maybe 5% of the calls, we new it was legit! 
     
     As much as we presented our case to management, no criteria or support 
     came about.  Really, only our surgeons would try not to abuse this, 
     and theirs was a small percentage.  Along with burn-out came poor 
     morale and feelings of fustration.  No one should have to work under 
     such conditions! Burning out your best techs does not promote quality 
     patient care or job performance.  At one point, a survey was done on 
     department overtime.  My overtime and call time far exceeded 10 other 
     techs together in the department.
     
     I now work with Bill Schroedter and Sidney Holec at Venice Hospital 
     who have diligently fought administration against us going on call.
     We are open Sat and Sun 8:00am to 10:00am or until the work is done. 
     Any ER scans are scheduled for the next day.  We stay as late as we 
     need to during the week and are not on call. I feel fornutate to work 
     in a lab that has such support and direction.
     
     I personally feel that if the lab is open for some time everyday, that 
     patients can wait to be scheduled the next day.