ACGME rules on vacation time

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Say a resident gets 15 days of vacation. His program doesn't allow vacation during hospital/inpatient rotation. Now this resident just found out his entire schedule has been changed to hospital/inpatient for the rest of the year but he still has a few more vacation days. Does he forfeit them for not taking it sooner or does the program accommodate?

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[HemeOncHopeful19]

I don’t think this is gonna have an ACGME rule protecting it. Your best bet is bringing it up to the dept/chiefs in a nice way and hoping they will work with you.

 

[Mass Effect]

I don’t think this is gonna have an ACGME rule protecting it. Your best bet is bringing it up to the dept/chiefs in a nice way and hoping they will work with you.

Second this. It would be pretty crappy of your chiefs to not make accommodations so you can take those days especially since your schedule was changed. Why was it changed anyway?

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Alternatively, perhaps they will let you roll those days over to the next year's schedule if you're not graduating.

 

[j4pac]

Say a resident gets 15 days of vacation. His program doesn't allow vacation during hospital/inpatient rotation. Now this resident just found out his entire schedule has been changed to hospital/inpatient for the rest of the year but he still has a few more vacation days. Does he forfeit them for not taking it sooner or does the program accommodate?

Vacation is important...especially in today’s crap climate. I’m sure that your PD/chiefs would be reasonable if you gave them a chance. Chances are they may just not know. Be respectful and I’d be surprised if they didn’t attempt to make some accommodations for you.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Second this. It would be pretty crappy of your chiefs to not make accommodations so you can take those days especially since your schedule was changed. Why was it changed anyway?

I have to talk to the PD for those kind of vacation during inpatient. I just want to know the rules in case they insist I can't take that time off

Our schedules get changed, so no particular reason

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

Alternatively, perhaps they will let you roll those days over to the next year's schedule if you're not graduating.

With all due respect this is nice idea in theory but imo it’s a trap. Next year’s chiefs won’t care what this year’s chiefs promised you. You will be relying on your PD to make them keep that promise, but if you can rely on that then they should just work with you this year already.

Just to be completely clear - this is definitely a catch more flies with honey situation. If you start to get argumentative and stuff people are much less likely to help you out. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be, but that’s the way it is.

-Former chief who made the schedules and then remade them 5x during COVID

 

[GoSpursGo]

I have to talk to the PD for those kind of vacation during inpatient. I just want to know the rules in case they insist I can't take that time off

Our schedules get changed, so no particular reason

Yeah before worrying about what the rules are and going down that rabbit hole of how to fight this, I would just talk it out with the PD/chiefs. As others are saying, this is likely a situation where if you're respectful, your chiefs/PD will work with you; if you go in preparing for a fight you might not get the outcome you want.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Yeah before worrying about what the rules are and going down that rabbit hole of how to fight this, I would just talk it out with the PD/chiefs. As others are saying, this is likely a situation where if you're respectful, your chiefs/PD will work with you; if you go in preparing for a fight you might not get the outcome you want.

Agreed. That's the plan. I'm not trying to make a big fuss out of this. I'm more curious about the rules rather than approaching this as an argument

 

[Raryn]

Say a resident gets 15 days of vacation. His program doesn't allow vacation during hospital/inpatient rotation. Now this resident just found out his entire schedule has been changed to hospital/inpatient for the rest of the year but he still has a few more vacation days. Does he forfeit them for not taking it sooner or does the program accommodate?

ACGME and ABMS rules on vacation are pretty nonexistent. Most specialties have a *maximum* amount of vacation that you can take - like no program can give more than 4 or 5 weeks off a year, can't take more than extra X weeks off to remain board eligible, etc - but there's no real minimum. Maybe it's 2 weeks somewhere - I can't remember where I read that though.

Your contract should specify the details of your program. If there's a problem, talk about it with your chiefs and your PD.

 

[Apollyon]

ACGME and ABMS rules on vacation are pretty nonexistent. Most specialties have a *maximum* amount of vacation that you can take - like no program can give more than 4 or 5 weeks off a year, can't take more than extra X weeks off to remain board eligible, etc - but there's no real minimum. Maybe it's 2 weeks somewhere - I can't remember where I read that though.

Your contract should specify the details of your program. If there's a problem, talk about it with your chiefs and your PD.

Yeah - they don't say how much vacation you get, but the opposite - say, 46 weeks per year are needed on service. The remaining weeks aren't their concern or problem.

 

[WheezyBaby]

ACGME and ABMS rules on vacation are pretty nonexistent. Most specialties have a *maximum* amount of vacation that you can take - like no program can give more than 4 or 5 weeks off a year, can't take more than extra X weeks off to remain board eligible, etc - but there's no real minimum. Maybe it's 2 weeks somewhere - I can't remember where I read that though.

Your contract should specify the details of your program. If there's a problem, talk about it with your chiefs and your PD.

I believe 2 weeks is an ACGME minimum

 

[dpmd]

In our program the earned vacation days showed up on your paycheck and any left over at the end (up to a maximum that I can't recall right now) got paid at graduation. So they did roll over officially. They were fairly inflexible on taking vacation when it wasn't allowed by tradition but there weren't many restrictions so it was fine. Plus we were a small program so the issue if taking vacation during x was evident to all. That said I took all the vacation I was due every year but somehow it wasn't always reported so I still got my vacation payout after graduation so that was sweet.

 

[AMEHigh]

As everyone has said acgme has no specific rules about this.

In my program we couldn’t take vacation during in-patient or OB. But every once in awhile something would come up and someone would need a day off on those services, so someone would need to cover. Usually we worked it out among ourselves about who would cover and then just told the chief and it wasn’t a huge deal.

So if I were you, if you’re planning to take a week vacation because they changed your schedule and you need to use a day, I would talk with the other residents to see who can cover. Then, I’d tell your chief (and PD if that’s how your program operates), that due to the schedule change that wasn’t my decision I’ve found X to cover this week for my already planned vacation.