I wonder what the consulting medical staff thinks of this development.

On one hand, a busier E.R. might mean more referral business, even if it means more coming into the E.R. after hours. The downside is that it also might mean more high-risk unpaid consultation (unpaid to the consultant; the hospital usually gets some compensation). I suppose it would matter what kind of growth in patient volume the expanding hospital was expecting.

“(And they do get paid to be call.)”

Maybe where you are, but not where I am. And nowhere in the area of the nation’s capital. In some
area hospitals, the high volume of unpaid specialty consultation from the hospital ER has prompted staff members to quit the hospital staff (and these weren’t doctors on the brink of retirement, either)