Any GS program with full weekends off and/or good vacation time?

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According to FREIDA, it appears that most general surgery residency programs only have one 24 hour period off per week (averaged over 1 month). Does anyone know of a program that offers two consecutive days off even if it's only every other week? Also, what about generous yearly vacation time (e.g. 1 month vs. 2 weeks)?

I am mostly interest in Pacific and Mountain area programs with trauma exposure (e.g. USC/LA county, UW, UC @ Denver, UCSF-E. Bay, Utah, etc.)

I don't mind working hard when I'm on, but I'd like to be able to get to the mountains on occasion.

I love the lifestyle associated with emergency medicine but after having a little exposure to surgery during Ob-Gyn (I'm an MSIII and won't have my surgery rotation until the end of this year), I am now leaning more toward trauma surgery. Not to knock EM, it just seems that EM these days is mostly low acuity primary care without appointments (yawn) and the best cases are handed off to the trauma (=surgery) team.

Anybody else facing my dilemma?

I suspect that with the new limitations on resident work hours this will be far, far less of an issue in your decision tree than it necessarily was at the time that I matched. I haven't spoken up because of the regional preferences that you give, however, being that there aren't exactly a plethora of responses yet, I'll offer what I can.

One of the reasons I came to my program is because of two full weekends off per month (no clinical duties, i.e. no rounding), 3 1/2 weeks vacation per year, and home call for part of years 1 through 3, and for all of years 4 and 5. Truly, it's turned out to be the home call that has by far had the biggest impact on our lifestyle. The residents told me that would be the case, but it was impossible to appreciate until you understand what it's like to go 48 hours without seeing your home, your dog, or your family, and to have to do this every three days.

We also are Level I trauma (mostly blunt, however), do tons of cases, have marked early autonomy, great ABSITE scores, great record of fellowship matching, and an overall great time.

Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines.

I don't know how things will change with the new work rules, but last I checked, surgery residents at Utah get one weekend off (both days) per month, period. They get 3 weeks of vacation, staggered throughout the year. I went to med school there, and spoke to one of my classmates who stayed there for residency about a month ago. They're having a hard time w/manpower issues and the new rules, but I think they'll figure it out. They have an incredible chairman, and it was a tough call for me to decide to go elsewhere for my training. If you need to get to the mountains and want to operate early and often, I'd definitely check it out

When I interviewed at UAB, one of the PGY-4 residents said that he gets at least one complete weekend off per month (2 weekends every 7 weeks). He seemed pretty pleased, b/c he was then able to fly somewhere b/c Birmingham didn't offer him much. Some of the other residents liked B'ham and could deal with the city. Of course, schedule depends on service and year in training.

All of the programs you mentioned above are extremely competitive, so you'd better be a crackerjack applicant if you want your pick of them.

Also, with the new ACGME-required 80 hour work week, most programs are either giving 1 full day off per week, or every other weekend (essentially the same deal).

With those said, the cushiest program in the area you mentioned is probably Swedish in Seattle. A plastic surgeon I know went there and described it as pretty laid back (for surgery). They only take 2 people per year, though.