how much do residents study?

[JakeSill]

Book studying, tests, etc. is there studying to do in residency?

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[eteshoe]

I assume they'd study a bit since they'd eventually want to be board certified.

 

[minerva3121]

In addition to the board exam at the end of residency, there are also in-service exams every year + USMLE Step 3 in your first year

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Not to mention most residents study whatever it is they are currently seeing or will see the next day. For example if a surgical resident knows they are going to be in the OR the next day and they will be doing an apply, chole, and a hernia then they will most likely spend at least a little time to study the necessary anatomy, technique, etc.

If some FM resident knows they will be seeing patient X tomorrow with X and X problems they will probably refresh themselves on those things.

This is all just assumption but it would make sense to me.

 

[Spinach Dip]

25 hours a day
8 days a week
366 days a year (367 in leap years)

 

[Fdsa2495]

I've attended classes for residents, they're usually quick powerpoints on topics to review on since I'm assuming they have studied the topic in med school. Most of them don't show up since they're working and the ones that do show up are just enjoying their lunch break while listening to random senior doctor. But pretty sure to study a bit on their day off or something

 

[Ismet]

You will always be reading and learning throughout your career. Medicine is a constantly changing field and you are expected to be up to date. If you have a patient with X disease, that's an opportunity to learn all you can about the etiology, diagnosis, management, prognosis, etc of that disease.

Residency programs will have didactic sessions for residents. Some programs do it daily, like over lunch, while some programs are moving towards having a single chunk of time per week of didactics. There are also things to prepare for such as morning report/case report (presenting a patient to your fellow residents and they work through the case), presentations/lectures, EBM/journal club, etc.

Also as said above there's Step 3 that you take during intern year and then in-service exams that lead up to the national board exam you take at the end in order to become board certified. Most programs provide board prep incorporated into their didactics. More practice questions!

 

[DubVille]

It depends on the specialty. Some do more "book studying" than others. It is true you have annual in-service exams, but most people aren't really that focused on those until they are close. You generally review info relevant to your patients. It's different. It's also nice to be able to study within your niche and sort of ignore (but not totally forget) other crap.

I probably spend 4-8 hours a week purely studying. Half of that is from didactics. My wife (different specialty) easily doubles that amount.

 

[mimelim]

I read every day 15-30 minutes. The two months leading up to the VSITE (ie right now), I'm doing closer to an hour a day. That is on top of the 80 hour work week. I would say that I am average for my program.

 

[JHU Texan]

As a 4th year radiology resident I have 9 hours a week of lectures/conferences. In addition, I have averaged over the course of residency about 75 minutes per day of reading outside work during the week with 5 hours of reading over the weekend unless I'm on call. Finally, like most people in medicine I review the pertinent anatomy, imaging findings and pathophysiology on most of the imaging studies I interpret (much less so as I've progressed in residency) depending on the complexity of the exam. As others have said, many fields such as radiation oncology, dermatology, pathology, among many others expect their residents to spend a significant amount of time outside work studying and is completely specialty dependent.

 

[mvenus929]

I have 10 hours of conference per week. In addition, I do board review questions every week, and read up on random things that strike my fancy. We have a weekly assignment for continuity clinic, plus a number of modules we have to complete before the end of second year, and some other material to get further certification. So, all told, I probably do an additional 10-15 hours of reading outside of conferences per week; less when I'm on an inpatient month, and more when I'm on an outpatient month. I'm also working on a case report right now in all my 'free' time, so I'm doing a lot of searching for and reading articles right now to get my introduction and discussion done.

 

[mimelim]

As a 4th year radiology resident I have 9 hours a week of lectures/conferences. In addition, I have averaged over the course of residency about 75 minutes per day of reading outside work during the week with 5 hours of reading over the weekend unless I'm on call. Finally, like most people in medicine I review the pertinent anatomy, imaging findings and pathophysiology on most of the imaging studies I interpret (much less so as I've progressed in residency) depending on the complexity of the exam. As others have said, many fields such as radiation oncology, dermatology, pathology, among many others expect their residents to spend a significant amount of time outside work studying and is completely specialty dependent.

I have 10 hours of conference per week. In addition, I do board review questions every week, and read up on random things that strike my fancy. We have a weekly assignment for continuity clinic, plus a number of modules we have to complete before the end of second year, and some other material to get further certification. So, all told, I probably do an additional 10-15 hours of reading outside of conferences per week; less when I'm on an inpatient month, and more when I'm on an outpatient month. I'm also working on a case report right now in all my 'free' time, so I'm doing a lot of searching for and reading articles right now to get my introduction and discussion done.

Jesus, and our guys bitch about having 3 hours of didactics per week. Granted, our home service is a bit of a beat down, but still, 9-10 hours of conference? ~2 hours per day? How do you have the time...

 

[TypeADissection]

Not to mention most residents study whatever it is they are currently seeing or will see the next day. For example if a surgical resident knows they are going to be in the OR the next day and they will be doing an apply, chole, and a hernia then they will most likely spend at least a little time to study the necessary anatomy, technique, etc.

If some FM resident knows they will be seeing patient X tomorrow with X and X problems they will probably refresh themselves on those things.

This is all just assumption but it would make sense to me.

Bingo. You study nightly for the more imminent topics that you'll face the next day. If you're going to do a LAR, breast case, fem-distal bypass - it's probably best you know your anatomy, indications and complications to look for postop. At my program, not knowing these things, along with not knowing everything about the patient, will get you thrown out of the OR or just relegated to retraction duties. The in-service exam does creep up every year and that too also requires a different type of studying because you have to go back and refresh on wound healing, cancer biology, and other topics that you may not necessarily deal with on a daily basis or is just too esoteric. When you're tired, hungry and disgusted with yourself because you haven't been to the gym for a while, it is a daily and I repeat daily struggle to sit down and read after you leave work. I try to do 30 minutes each day. Some days I get into a better groove and other days I chase the rabbit hole down YouTube watching people light farts on fire.

 

[DrBowtie]

Jesus, and our guys bitch about having 3 hours of didactics per week. Granted, our home service is a bit of a beat down, but still, 9-10 hours of conference? ~2 hours per day? How do you have the time...

Radiology has no pre rounding so you can have a set 7 am daily conference. Dedicated noon hour lecture as well with few services having procedures extend over that time.

 

[Ad2b]

other days I chase the rabbit hole down YouTube watching people light farts on fire.

exbf = physician; used to watch YouTube videos of really stupid stuff (he was 55 at time). asked him why when he was in such a "professional field" - he laughed and said he needed the down time and some stupidity because the rest of his life was consumed with learning, teaching, understanding and being "on" ...

glad your out is watch farts burn

 

[mvenus929]

Jesus, and our guys bitch about having 3 hours of didactics per week. Granted, our home service is a bit of a beat down, but still, 9-10 hours of conference? ~2 hours per day? How do you have the time...

We have 8 am and noon conferences every weekday. Those on outpatient rotations start with morning conference, since most clinics don't start seeing patients til 9, and the inpatient services do all their prerounding before then. Except PICU, where rounds start at 7:15 instead of 9, so they rarely come to morning conference. Most services finish up rounds in time for noon conference, and then everyone does floor work in the afternoon. It's pretty standard for Peds and IM to be structured this way.

 

[Ismet]

We have 8 am and noon conferences every weekday. Those on outpatient rotations start with morning conference, since most clinics don't start seeing patients til 9, and the inpatient services do all their prerounding before then. Except PICU, where rounds start at 7:15 instead of 9, so they rarely come to morning conference. Most services finish up rounds in time for noon conference, and then everyone does floor work in the afternoon. It's pretty standard for Peds and IM to be structured this way.

Yep that's how it is at my home program as well.

 

[QofQuimica]

Book studying, tests, etc. is there studying to do in residency?

We had five hours per week of conference, monthly reading assignments, and monthly quizzes along with the yearly in-service. I generally read/listened to podcasts/did practice questions on my own another 5 hours per week or so, depending on what rotation I was on. Obviously an ICU rotation doesn't give you as much downtime for studying as an ambulatory month does. And as others have already said, I ramped up my studying for the 2-3 months before the in-service.

Step 3 studying is often pretty minimal for those of us who did/do a general intern year (TY/IM/FM/EM). I took a week's vacation to cram for and take the test (which is two days long). That was significantly more than most people did, and in retrospect, not really necessary.

 

[Ischemia1032]

I think it really depends on what specialty. Generally, residents will be studying a lot still, your education never ends, there is always more to learn because medicine is rapidly expanding every year, even in the narrowest field it is expanding. I like to think of specialties like PhDs, we often become hyperfocused on one organ, one organ system, and we are great at it, but we still have to master it. For clinical specialties, whether it be IM, Cardio, Gastro, Surgery, all of them are probably about 70-80% learning cases, techniques etc., 20% learning new information(like basic science, like a cardiology fellow is going to be studying more cardiophysio then he did in med school). I think two specialties are the exception, radiology and pathology typically work less hours(like 60-70 at most), but they do a lot more studying because those specialties require a much larger knowledge base of basic science due to their breadth and depth compared to virtually any other specialty. Studying rads or path is like med school 2.0, you get many gignormous textbooks to essentially relearn medicine from a different perspective. I would say radiology(idk about path, however it is probably similar) is like 60-70% learning more pathophys/phys, learning a whole new way to visualize the body, they are just very different fields from the rest of medicine.

 

[pandemicpremed97]

How much do ER residents study?

And how does one find time to study outside of working 60-80 hours?

 

[TheDataKing]

Residents study a solid amount across all fields afaik

 

[premedbedhead]

Am I the only one who sees “how much do bunnies study?”

 

[TheDataKing]

Am I the only one who sees “how much do bunnies study?”

what do you mean? it shows up as "medical residents" for me ...?

 

[Ms Procrastinator]

Am I the only one who sees “how much do bunnies study?”

Checking today's date should answer your question.