I’m a premed on my gap year with a growing interest in NSGY and had a basic question on how call works for neurosurgeons: who gets cranial call, and what kind of call do you get depending on your subspecialty? Do functional surgeons have to take cranial call?
We have separate call for tumor, vascular, peds, and spine. Spine is split up between ortho and neuro. "General" call is everything that doesn't fall under that (= trauma mainly, non-operative subdurals, etc) and also includes our VA. General call is taken by all attendings (from the most junior faculty to the chair) from all subspecialties in the department, including functional.
Call schedules are something that are negotiated at the time of hire. Typically, the most junior faculty take call more often to get more operative experience, but ideally in a way that is fair to everybody in the department.
Forgot to mention, adult and peds are completely separate. Our peds attendings see absolutely everything that comes in the door, so it doesn't get split up the way it does for adult. Peds spine is also split up between ortho and neuro.
Spine is not always split between Neuro and Ortho either - that varies based on hospital.