Anyone else have too much free time?

[zurned]

Hi guys, For an occupation that works 10-12 days a month, does anyone else get really bored during their off time? I don't like the job enough to pick up more shifts, and at this point in my life I don't need more money.

As for hobbies, theyve become less enjoyable now that I have tons of free time. There's always the next day off that I can do it.

Just wondering if anyone else feels the same way? I am about 3 years out of residency.

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[NMonte82]

Yeah, I also get really annoyed at the constant bickering between Victoria's Secret Angels and SI Swimsuit Models over who gets to have sex with me next. I mean, can't a guy have a moment to rehydrate every now and then?

 

[shoal]

No.

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[RustedFox]

Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[witzelsucht]

reddit.com


learn about all the reasons you need to start buying fountain pens and artisan whole leaf tea and cooking moleuclar gastronomy

 

[Janders]

Nope. Could retire now and never be bored.

PS have a couple kids, that'll fill up the free time

 

[emergentmd]

geeez....

I hope to work 6 days soon and get SUPER bored with my life.

 

[Arcan57]

Hi guys, For an occupation that works 10-12 days a month, does anyone else get really bored during their off time? I don't like the job enough to pick up more shifts, and at this point in my life I don't need more money.

As for hobbies, theyve become less enjoyable now that I have tons of free time. There's always the next day off that I can do it.

Just wondering if anyone else feels the same way? I am about 3 years out of residency.

I'll bite. I'm not sure if I'd necessarily classify it as boredom but I used to get the feeling of being useless if I had more than 2-3 days off in a row. Having 2 school age kids has pretty much made those feeling go away. To combat the feeling, I tried the working more route without much success. It helped while I was working but increased burnout. While I was physically capable of working more shifts, the mental and emotional fatigue didn't clear when working more than 18 shifts a month.

 

[deleted77919]

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[sandiego1]

As an MS4 waiting to match in EM this is definitely something I'm concerned about. I imagine it will be a little better when I'm an attending and have kids but a few ideas I've had to keep busy are getting involved in hospital admin, flipping houses and day trading. I'm losing my mind a little with how much free time I have now and it's something I feel like people don't talk about much - mostly because I've only had exposure to academic attendings who do research or teach, etc.

I also dont understand how people can work so few hours as an attending and still be concerned about burnout. If people can work 17-18 12-hour shifts in residency, working 14 12's as an attending seems really easy, no? I know I'm still early in my career but just wondering why this is an issue. Also as I understand it, most residency programs schedule in 4-week blocks whereas in the community most places schedule by month which adds a few days per month.

 

[shoal]

As an MS4 waiting to match in EM this is definitely something I'm concerned about. I imagine it will be a little better when I'm an attending and have kids but a few ideas I've had to keep busy are getting involved in hospital admin, flipping houses and day trading. I'm losing my mind a little with how much free time I have now and it's something I feel like people don't talk about much - mostly because I've only had exposure to academic attendings who do research or teach, etc.

I also dont understand how people can work so few hours as an attending and still be concerned about burnout. If people can work 17-18 12-hour shifts in residency, working 14 12's as an attending seems really easy, no? I know I'm still early in my career but just wondering why this is an issue. Also as I understand it, most residency programs schedule in 4-week blocks whereas in the community most places schedule by month which adds a few days per month.

I thought the same thing as a ms. I thought the same thing as a resident, no big deal I'm working 5 shifts less a month, that must make things easier....

WRONG. The stress is higher, the additional years just make it harder. 12-15 shifts a month doesn't sound like a lot, but once you have kids, wife -- things get eaten up pretty fast.

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[RustedFox]

As an MS4 waiting to match in EM this is definitely something I'm concerned about. I imagine it will be a little better when I'm an attending and have kids but a few ideas I've had to keep busy are getting involved in hospital admin, flipping houses and day trading. I'm losing my mind a little with how much free time I have now and it's something I feel like people don't talk about much - mostly because I've only had exposure to academic attendings who do research or teach, etc.

I also dont understand how people can work so few hours as an attending and still be concerned about burnout. If people can work 17-18 12-hour shifts in residency, working 14 12's as an attending seems really easy, no? I know I'm still early in my career but just wondering why this is an issue. Also as I understand it, most residency programs schedule in 4-week blocks whereas in the community most places schedule by month which adds a few days per month.

Oh, nooo. This, again ?

In short, residency =/= attendinghood. Not by a long shot. Not by a galaxy.

 

[NMonte82]

Oh, nooo. This, again ?

In short, residency =/= attendinghood. Not by a long shot. Not by a galaxy.

What about in a galaxy...far, far away?




Couldn't resist.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Make no mistake about it, the schedule in EM is hard. I average about 135 hours per month, but many months work closer to 160 (plus often staying 30+ minutes late per shift). With bouncing back and forth between days evenings and nights with no rhyme or reason, well it isn't as much free time as it sounds like.

I agree that it can sometimes be difficult to fill that free time though. There just aren't many people who want to hang out and do something at 10am on a Tuesday or 3am on a Wednesday. It is basically impossible to commit to regularly scheduled activities. Want to volunteer with scouts every Monday night and one weekend camping trip a month? Well, there went all of your schedule requests for the month. Enjoy working every other weekend with an awkward isolated midle of the week night shift because you didnt/couldn't ask for any other days off.

Yes, I get a little bitter when it comes to our schedulers...

I agree that 160 hours a month on shift is hard. I've done it before and don't like it. I'm currently at 128 and very much looking forward to dropping to 96.

I also agree it's very tough to help with Scouts, coach (or play) on sports teams and to deal with random night shifts.

Yes, there's a lot of free time as long as whatever you want to fit into it can be done at any time of day or night. It works well with my side gig as a blogger. It works reasonably well with going on trips. It works terribly with my kids, my wife, my volunteer pursuits, and my hockey team.

 

[deleted77919]

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[deleted720339]

Re: middle of the night hobbies...If you are into music (or learning an instrument), nearly all amplified instruments can be played by plugging in headphones to an amp, keyboard, or electric drum kit. All easy to play without waking anyone up!

 

[Hercules]

Re: middle of the night hobbies...If you are into music (or learning an instrument), nearly all amplified instruments can be played by plugging in headphones to an amp, keyboard, or electric drum kit. All easy to play without waking anyone up!

Umm... My middle of the night hobby is sleeping? Seriously, if I'm not working and it's the middle of the night then I'm sleeping so I can be awake during daylight hours like the rest of the world.


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[deleted77919]

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[goodoldalky]

Between my regular job, a couple of side gigs, family/kid(s), and all the usual maintain a house and run your finances stuff I feel like I have almost zero free time. I will say that kids are the biggest wrecker to all things social and hobby, with the schizophrenic EM schedule a distant second.
IMO 120 hours is the cutoff for longevity in EM for large volume high acuity sites. I try to stay under that whenever possible. Much easier to work more at lower acuity shops.

 

[GeneralVeers]

Working nights is okay if you live in a big city like New York, or in my case Las Vegas. Maintaining a semi-night schedule on your days off is easier if you have a bar/restaurant or shopping mall to go to in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how people manage in flyover country where everything closes up tight on weekdays at 9PM.

 

[Hercules]

That can be hard when you come off a string of nights. Or your schedulers give you two nights. One day off. One night. One day off. 24 hour turn around day shift. Then a few days off.

I wish I could just flip a switch and go to sleep, and have resisted using alcohol or pharmaceuticals to help. So yes, sometimes I'm awake in the middle of the night.

I didn't mean to make light of the circadian disruption inherent to our specialty. I've been out of residency for 7 years and have a wife and 4 kids, so I assure you I feel the pain of an irregular schedule. I think your point speaks to two things.

1. Scheduling: You should not accept terrible scheduling. Period. There are too many good scheduling programs out there that will let you weight priorities and generate reasonable schedules. If your scheduler generates crap, they need to be taken to task.

2. Sleep hygiene: I think one of the biggest keys to longevity in EM is developing sleep habits that work for you. If you're having trouble sleeping then it's time to change your approach. I always like hearing everyone's differing approaches and am intrigued to hear the many different ways we all solve the same problems.


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[RustedFox]

I didn't mean to make light of the circadian disruption inherent to our specialty. I've been out of residency for 7 years and have a wife and 4 kids, so I assure you I feel the pain of an irregular schedule. I think your point speaks to two things.

1. Scheduling: You should not accept terrible scheduling. Period. There are too many good scheduling programs out there that will let you weight priorities and generate reasonable schedules. If your scheduler generates crap, they need to be taken to task.

2. Sleep hygiene: I think one of the biggest keys to longevity in EM is developing sleep habits that work for you. If you're having trouble sleeping then it's time to change your approach. I always like hearing everyone's differing approaches and am intrigued to hear the many different ways we all solve the same problems.


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The underlined needs to be spun off into its own thread. I'm on it.

As far as middle of the night hobbies go: I'm a gamer, but not half the gamer that I used to be. I cannot wait for the new Tekken. I am a 34 year-old male who... still collects and trades baseball and hockey cards. Go ahead and laugh; my collection is awesome.

 

[Doctor Bob]

I am a 34 year-old male who... still collects and trades baseball and hockey cards. Go ahead and laugh; my collection is awesome.

I still play/collect Magic:TG cards... I have no ground on which to criticize...

 

[RustedFox]

I still play/collect Magic:TG cards... I have no ground on which to criticize...

No critique here. I played EVERY iteration of the "Final Fantasy" series (until FF10 came out; because it - and every one after that have categorically sucked) thru to completion.

I'm in hog-heaven right now, because spring training is in my backyard (seriously 10 minutes door-to-field for me), and I chase down autographs all March. Yukking it up with MLB'ers is cool. Most of them are good dudes.

 

[Janders]

I used to like video games a lot (flight sims! all those civilization games! esoteric strategy games!) but med school, residency and "real life" with kids scaled that back.

But I still play some 2AM world-of-tanks when I get off shift. BOOM!

 

[RustedFox]

I used to like video games a lot (flight sims! all those civilization games! esoteric strategy games!) but med school, residency and "real life" with kids scaled that back.

But I still play some 2AM world-of-tanks when I get off shift. BOOM!

I like some esoteric strategy games. SimGolf being my absolute fave.

You guys need to bump my "Classic Video Games" thread.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

1. Scheduling: You should not accept terrible scheduling. Period. There are too many good scheduling programs out there that will let you weight priorities and generate reasonable schedules. If your scheduler generates crap, they need to be taken to task.

I wouldn't go that far. I've been the scheduler. Your group has to prioritize either getting your requested days off or getting a nice flow to your schedule. You cannot have both. Since I always get my numerous requests off, I accept that my flow sometimes sucks.

 

[Hercules]

I wouldn't go that far. I've been the scheduler. Your group has to prioritize either getting your requested days off or getting a nice flow to your schedule. You cannot have both. Since I always get my numerous requests off, I accept that my flow sometimes sucks.

Agree completely about getting requests or a pretty schedule but not both. I have been the scheduler as well. The poster I responded to described getting two nights on, then one day off, then back onto a solitary night shift, then a 24 hr turnaround to days. I was going under the assumption that they would not be complaining about the situation if it were self-inflicted by their own crazy requests.


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[Groove]

Hmm, it really depends on your goals. I've been aggressively paying down debt, so last year was all about the work hours. If I need to make 500+, then that requires 1920+ hours for the year and that just doesn't leave much free time, or at least it doesn't feel like much free time. That's usually 160+ hrs a month. 130, I'll be honest... feels very light to me. I know that's probably optimal for physical and mental health but I honestly just get bored with 130. 140 - 150 is probably my happy medium. I think 140 is a perfect balance. I see the light at the end of the tunnel with loans and felt really burnt last year (and the year before) so I made a commitment to cut down the hours in 2016 and focus more on my personal life. Life's not all about the $$$ though I can understand the stress of student loans and those of us in the 40+ bracket worrying about "catching up" with retirement savings who might have gotten a late start on things.

 

[deleted77919]

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[Tiger26]

We do 12s but have seventeen 9 day breaks per year. Comes out to about 0.9 FTE, so people can pick up the remaining 0.1 if wanted. Overall, I think it's a fantastic schedule. 2 on, 3 off, 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 9 off.