September 1974. I was a third-year medical student at NYU. My husband and I, newlyweds, lived in a single room in the med student dorm. Fortunately, third-year students took night calls, so on those nights, my husband had the single pull-out bed all to himself.

If family medicine and emergency medicine existed as defined specialties at that time, our med school didn’t acknowledge them. Seven years later, as a chief resident, …

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When you are a young academic general surgeon, even the nights are sometimes good. A good on-call night unfolds something like this. You might have spent the day working in the operating room or in the clinic seeing patients. Your on-call typically begins at 5 p.m., although occasionally, a colleague may ask to sign out early. This call period will not end until 7 or 8 a.m. the next morning, …

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