24/7 pediatric radiology attending coverage: times are changing.

The job of the pediatric radiologist long ago ceased to be an 8-to-5 role. Many practices have adopted evening shifts of in-house attending radiologists to cover the busy evening activity. With the ever-increasing role of imaging in clinical decisions and patient management, there is a need - if not a demand - to further extend attending pediatric radiology coverage. In this article, we discuss the needs and justification for extending pediatric radiology coverage at a tertiary-care children's hospital. We also describe the approach we took toward implementing 24/7 attending in-house coverage of pediatric radiology.