Table 5 Illustrative participant quotes on working in call groups or teams as an enabler

I have a really awesome call group… if I want to take the weekend off and have a weekend with my family, and not have to worry about being pulled away… I can sign out to them… I have a group of physicians that will care for my patients. … I trust that my patients are in really good hands… my patients know that I’m part of a call group… they all know that there are going to be times that I can’t show up for their delivery… they all kind of seem … to be understanding of that reality. (Family Physician, woman, NS)

Well, I feel very lucky to be part of a clinic that is very supportive of one another. So, within the clinic, there are now 5 of us who have our own practices but all cover each other because we all are only in the clinic a few days a week. We share all of the obstetrics patients because we all typically do a day of call a week. So therefore don’t commit ourselves to one particular patient for their entire pregnancy. Like being available for them. So, we’re in a call group. (Family Physician, woman, BC)

I live in a community that …is just under 100,000, maybe 80,000…the obstetrics doctors… have their own sort of system and their own call and their own website. And you’d have to almost join that, I think, at this point if you were doing obstetrics. (Family Physician, woman, BC)

There are other provinces or other places that had different sort of models that would suit my lifestyle a bit better. And I think I’m speaking more to the obstetrics part of it. Because I kind of mentioned that like here like you’re basically on the clock. They do have a bit of a call schedule here, but it’s not as well established as in other communities. So, I’m definitely looking at different provinces. And we’re even looking at the States as well. (Resident, woman, NS)

I do prenatal care. I would have liked to keep doing deliveries but there’s no other family docs in [city] right now that do it. So, I would be on call for my own patients, which deterred me from pursuing that. (Family Physician, woman, NS)