How long are your shifts? Interns/Residents

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Hello to all

I'm an intern. My shifts are for 30 hours, and I can only sleep for 2 hours during that 30 hours. The resident's shifts are even worse. They sometimes have to stay at the hospital for 48 hours.
I want to gather some information about other places, in order to talk to our university dean about it. He refused me the previous time I told about the shifts. He said he had done the same as an intern and I have to do it as well!

May you help me know

how long your shifts are as an intern or resident?
how many shifts per month?
how many hours you can sleep in each shift?
you check the vital signs, insert NG tubes, urinary catheters, get blood for arterial bloos gas, check BS with gluecometer or the nurses do?
you write the orders and medications?


Thank you so much for your attention

Originally Posted by Parisa1

Hello to all

I'm an intern. My shifts are for 30 hours, and I can only sleep for 2 hours during that 30 hours. The resident's shifts are even worse. They sometimes have to stay at the hospital for 48 hours.
I want to gather some information about other places, in order to talk to our university dean about it. He refused me the previous time I told about the shifts. He said he had done the same as an intern and I have to do it as well!

May you help me know

how long your shifts are as an intern or resident?
how many shifts per month?
how many hours you can sleep in each shift?
you check the vital signs, insert NG tubes, urinary catheters, get blood for arterial bloos gas, check BS with gluecometer or the nurses do?
you write the orders and medications?


Thank you so much for your attention

I'm assuming you are not in the US. In the US there are new duty hour rules. Intern shifts cannot be longer than 16 hours in a row. More senior residents can work 24 (+4). you can't exceed greater than 80 hours a week, averaged over a month. You get 4 days off a month. You can't do more than 6 days of night float shifts in a row without a day off. You often don't get to go to sleep on shifts, particularly mow that folks are moving away from call to a night float system, but on longer overnight shifts if it's quiet once and a while you'll get a few hours. There is no limit to the number of shifts per month as long as you stay within the duty hours. In general, at least on paper, you will have to work 320 hours a month or less, however that pans out. In general, because these duty hours rules are new, noone doing residency now will log the same kind of hours as the people who were residents just a decade ago, so complaints fall on deaf ears.
Nurses draw the blood, check the glucose, and do the non complicated Foley and NG tubes. Doctors, NPs and PAs have to write all orders.

Thank you so much Law2Doc. Yes, I'm not in the US. I'm an Iranian.

Originally Posted by Parisa1

Thank you so much Law2Doc. Yes, I'm not in the US. I'm an Iranian.

Every resident in the US is governed by these guidelines - http://www.acgme.org/acwebsite/dutyhours/dh_index.asp

Med students are covered by the LCME, and I don't honestly know if there are work hour restrictions now, but at my school, the students didn't work any more hours than the residents.

Originally Posted by TheProwler

...
Med students are covered by the LCME, and I don't honestly know if there are work hour restrictions now, but at my school, the students didn't work any more hours than the residents.

it's school by school, I don't believe there are national restrictions on med students. When I was a med student we pre rounded before the interns, so your hours could be 45 mins or so longer per day than the interns if they didn't send you home early. I definitely surpassed 80 hours a couple of weeks.

Thank you TheProwler.
It said about the at home calls as well. How much of the duty hours are at home calls for residents?
Are residents or interns allowed to go to their room for a while, when they are at the hospital?
Do residents work the same hours in the first, second, third... year of their residency?

Originally Posted by Law2Doc

it's school by school, I don't believe there are national restrictions on med students. When I was a med student we pre rounded before the interns, so your hours could be 45 mins or so longer per day than the interns if they didn't send you home early. I definitely surpassed 80 hours a couple of weeks.

We regularly exceeded 80 hours on our trauma surgery weeks in third year. The Sub-Is we're supposed to take the same schedule as one of the interns, but we just remained "on call" with the team and did q3 call with alternating 30 and 14 hour shifts.