Can Somebody Explain PGY-1 to Me?

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scudiera

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Hi everyone. I'm posting this thread for a friend of mine who doesn't have an SDN account. My friend was wondering if somebody could describe what a typical schedule is in intern year. They are trying to figure out balance studying, personal life, and everything else and are anticipating it will be "very busy" but don't know exactly what that means in terms of day to day time commitments and other responsibilities. They're aware that some of this is program and rotation dependent but hopefully your experience can be insightful nonetheless.

Thanks!

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Uh, are they at a medical school? Do they interact with residents at that school?
 
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it depends on the month... some months such as icu not much time besides chores eating and sleeping. other months plenty of time. good advicd above.

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If you look at EM across the board, most programs have you actually doing very little EM your intern year (somewhere in the ballpark of 33% I'd imagine).

This means that your schedule will fluctuate quite a bit depend on what rotation you are on.

ICU? No life.
Anesthesia? Great life!

Also most programs have interns working more ER shifts compared to the more senior residents which amounts to even less time off.

All in all, intern year sucks and you will have very limited time off except for maybe a few good off service months depending on the program.
 
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If you look at EM across the board, most programs have you actually doing very little EM your intern year (somewhere in the ballpark of 33% I'd imagine).

What? My intern year I did about 70% EM. Where I went to med school was roughly the same. Granted my N=2, but an estimate of doing 33% EM time seems egregiously off.
 
What? My intern year I did about 70% EM. Where I went to med school was roughly the same. Granted my N=2, but an estimate of doing 33% EM time seems egregiously off.

70% is abnormal. I was probably low balling it, the average is probably closer to 40-50% but I was at the gym on my phone when I posted and focused more on my bench than what I was actually typing. Here are some examples of lower %:

http://www.henryford.com/body_program.cfm?id=49923

https://med.uc.edu/emergencymedicine/residency/curriculum

http://www.fresno.ucsf.edu/em/curriculum.htm

http://www.ohsu.edu/emergency/education/residency/rotations.cfm

Here are some around 50%:

http://www.case.edu/med/emergencymedicine/firstyear.html

http://www.mayo.edu/msgme/residenci...gency-medicine-residency-minnesota/curriculum

http://www.emergencymedicine.ucla.edu/residency_programformatrotations.php

http://emergency.ucsf.edu/education/residency-progams/program-info/rotation-curriculum

All very well respected programs. My point still stands: on average, intern year sucks (from a lifestyle point of view) and you will spend more time out of the ED compared to other years.
 
My intern year was pretty cush with a few easy off service rotations that allowed a lot of free time; such as anesthesia and OB. Second year is our worst year in terms of hours because all the off service rotations we have are really hard; such as ICU, trauma, neuro. Third year is mostly all ED.


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Our intern year is roughly 55% ED (mix of adult/peds/ultrasound).

Second and third year are pretty sweet though - roughly 85% ED both years.
 
I've often wondered the same thing. I haven't started medschool yet so I have no exposure to EM residents. I've worked as a scribe in the ED so I could understand what a resident would do then but when you're off-service what is your role? What are you doing?
 
I've often wondered the same thing. I haven't started medschool yet so I have no exposure to EM residents. I've worked as a scribe in the ED so I could understand what a resident would do then but when you're off-service what is your role? What are you doing?

Depends on the rotation. Anesthesia, we just went to the OR and intubated. Trauma, we rounded, wrote notes, responded to the traumas that got called. MICU was the same, rounded, wrote notes, procedures, codes. OBGYN, delivered babies, wrote notes, saw consults. Ideally you're going to get the experiences from each of those that you need to practice in the ED, but a lot of the time there's a price (scut work) that comes along with that experience.
 
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Depends on the rotation. Anesthesia, we just went to the OR and intubated. Trauma, we rounded, wrote notes, responded to the traumas that got called. MICU was the same, rounded, wrote notes, procedures, codes. OBGYN, delivered babies, wrote notes, saw consults. Ideally you're going to get the experiences from each of those that you need to practice in the ED, but a lot of the time there's a price (scut work) that comes along with that experience.

Ahhh okay, thank you for responding
 
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