Typical clinical year schedules?

[Syeira]

Hello folks! I'm a third year veterinary student starting my clinical year in the spring. As I'm going through the process of planning my clinical rotations and learning more about our schedule, I'm starting to get a little nervous about the workload associated with clinics. I'm incredibly excited to FINALLY start to put the pieces together and learn how to be a doctor, but I am very protective of my mental health/work life balance and I'm beginning to worry that it won't be possible to maintain these things during my clinical year.

Our schedule is pretty tough - 52 weeks of rotations with one two week break, but otherwise we are technically in our rotations 24/7, and each rotation lasts from Monday morning until the next Monday morning with no time off. For most rotations, we are expected to be present in the hospital from 5-6 AM until late in the evening, and we are expected to work all holidays and weekends. We are also expected to be on call every day for after hours duties. We do not receive any holidays or free days aside from our two week break. We don't have a lot of control over our rotations - we are able to prioritize our preferences, but we are told not to expect to get many of our preferences and that it's possible that even our top preferences will not be met. We are only allowed to have two external rotations, so we are confined to being in the school's hospital most of the time. We have been advised that we will likely not receive any lunch breaks on any of our rotations, and that we should organize among our friends so that we can select one person on an "easier" rotation to take care of essential tasks like grocery shopping, etc, for the entire group.

For those of you at different vet schools, is this fairly typical for a clinical year schedule? How do you all cope with the unpredictable and harrowing schedule? Any tips on how to thrive (or just survive) during your clinical year?

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[KCgophervet]

Hello folks! I'm a third year veterinary student starting my clinical year in the spring. As I'm going through the process of planning my clinical rotations and learning more about our schedule, I'm starting to get a little nervous about the workload associated with clinics. I'm incredibly excited to FINALLY start to put the pieces together and learn how to be a doctor, but I am very protective of my mental health/work life balance and I'm beginning to worry that it won't be possible to maintain these things during my clinical year.

Our schedule is pretty tough - 52 weeks of rotations with one two week break, but otherwise we are technically in our rotations 24/7, and each rotation lasts from Monday morning until the next Monday morning with no time off. For most rotations, we are expected to be present in the hospital from 5-6 AM until late in the evening, and we are expected to work all holidays and weekends. We are also expected to be on call every day for after hours duties. We do not receive any holidays or free days aside from our two week break. We don't have a lot of control over our rotations - we are able to prioritize our preferences, but we are told not to expect to get many of our preferences and that it's possible that even our top preferences will not be met. We are only allowed to have two external rotations, so we are confined to being in the school's hospital most of the time. We have been advised that we will likely not receive any lunch breaks on any of our rotations, and that we should organize among our friends so that we can select one person on an "easier" rotation to take care of essential tasks like grocery shopping, etc, for the entire group.

For those of you at different vet schools, is this fairly typical for a clinical year schedule? How do you all cope with the unpredictable and harrowing schedule? Any tips on how to thrive (or just survive) during your clinical year?

Um that sounds horrible. You and your classmates should probably reach out to the current 4th years and see how life really is, and if it is that bad then you need to go on strike or something because no one can work all weekdays, holidays, and weekends for a year with only a 2 week break. That is madness.

If its just being blown out of proportion to get you used to the idea that you may need to work some weekends and holidays and have long days at the hospital during some rotations then yes that seems more like a typical 4th year rotation.

I'm a ways out from 4th year admittedly, but I know we had most weekends off (or just coming in for treatments or on call) and we had some holidays off (depending on what rotation you were on for the holiday) and yes there were some very long days in the hospital but it wasn't every day. I am a big fan of eating and generally managed to find time to carve out to heat up and eat some food (maybe while updating records or prepping for an afternoon appointment). Yes I did miss a lunch here and there but again, not every day.

So, I don't think what you're describing is typical (at least not in line with my experience) but if it is then we need to do better as a profession.

I will say meal prepping is always a good idea. Going to bed on time is clutch - don't stay up crazy late trying to research a case because your brain will function better if it has enough sleep. Be proactive about your health - if it means taking a step back during a hectic day to sit in a locker room for 10 minutes to let your brain have a break then do it. Most things can wait 10 minutes.

You can also prep common cases now if you have a chance - things like diabetes management, common surgical procedures and post-op care, common emergencies (foreign body, back dogs, toxin ingestion, etc) and just make up little cheat sheets or something. Cheat sheets with common drug dosages could also come in handy.

Hope that helps and try not to feel too anxious about 4th year.

 

[LetItSnow]

It sounds overdramatized to me, but I didn't go to that school. It sounds like they are saying "it is within the rights of the rotation coordinator to have you there any day of the week" etc. etc.

Technically, that was the case for my fourth year (that was a while ago, though). But in reality, most rotations didn't do that. IM, Sx, CritCare were probably the worst that I remember for hours/weekends.

But Dentistry, Ophtho, Derm, ClinPath, Cardio, Radiology, Ultrasound, GP, Public Health ...... those were all basically 9-5 M-F with minimal (if any) weekend stuff.

Carry snacks, get used to making food that you can eat on the fly.

Don't overinvest in your cases. I saw a few students overdoing it.... they'd sit in the hospital with that worried look on their face stewing about "their" (hahahahahahahaha) case at 9PM wandering around trying to talk to anybody about what an "awful" case they had when there really wasn't anything to do. Face it - if the case needs significant changes, you don't have the authority to make them, and no patient is helped by you sitting in the hospital worrying. You're not really its doctor, no matter how much they tell you to think like you are, so go home and get sleep.

Anyway. Dunno. If it's REALLY as bad as you're describing - which would surprise me - then I dunno what to say. But it sounds really over-exaggerated. Maybe just to get you used to the idea that yeah, you might have to be in the hospital late or on weekends. That's true - so you do need to make arrangements for pets and things. But at least in my case, usually you got a good idea on the first Monday of every rotation what it was going to be like and then you could deal with it. And the majority of rotations just weren't alllllll day in the hospital and allllll weekend.

ETA: As far as holidays. Shrug. It's one year. Losing them for one year ..... meh.

 

[SkiOtter]

I second KC’s entire post. There are definitely some long days and a few days on certain rotations where it’s hard to find time to eat more than a handful of pretzels shoved into my mouth, but for the most part I have weekends off or just a small amount to do and we get holidays off unless on call, treatments, or on Er. I second the suggestion to reach out to current clinical students and see how exaggerated that is

 

[Syeira]

Um that sounds horrible. You and your classmates should probably reach out to the current 4th years and see how life really is, and if it is that bad then you need to go on strike or something because no one can work all weekdays, holidays, and weekends for a year with only a 2 week break. That is madness.

If its just being blown out of proportion to get you used to the idea that you may need to work some weekends and holidays and have long days at the hospital during some rotations then yes that seems more like a typical 4th year rotation.

I'm a ways out from 4th year admittedly, but I know we had most weekends off (or just coming in for treatments or on call) and we had some holidays off (depending on what rotation you were on for the holiday) and yes there were some very long days in the hospital but it wasn't every day. I am a big fan of eating and generally managed to find time to carve out to heat up and eat some food (maybe while updating records or prepping for an afternoon appointment). Yes I did miss a lunch here and there but again, not every day.

So, I don't think what you're describing is typical (at least not in line with my experience) but if it is then we need to do better as a profession.

I will say meal prepping is always a good idea. Going to bed on time is clutch - don't stay up crazy late trying to research a case because your brain will function better if it has enough sleep. Be proactive about your health - if it means taking a step back during a hectic day to sit in a locker room for 10 minutes to let your brain have a break then do it. Most things can wait 10 minutes.

You can also prep common cases now if you have a chance - things like diabetes management, common surgical procedures and post-op care, common emergencies (foreign body, back dogs, toxin ingestion, etc) and just make up little cheat sheets or something. Cheat sheets with common drug dosages could also come in handy.

Hope that helps and try not to feel too anxious about 4th year.

At this point, I'm truly hopeful that it is just an attempt to prepare us for the fact that our schedule is going to be a little tough, not that we're truly going to be in the clinic 24/7, but I'm worried. I know that the current 4th year class has raised serious concerns about their schedule and that several meetings have been conducted to discuss their concerns, but despite this the administration has not changed anything other than hiring a separate mental health counselor specifically for clinical students. The administration's response was allegedly that "having time to eat and sleep are aspirations during clinics, not a guarantee" - which is pretty horrifying for me to think about. The current fourth year class has also raised concerns that the schedule does not follow the AVMA's guidelines for duty hours during clinics, but the administration has simply responded that this just doesn't always work for our hospital and that those are "just guidelines, not rules." I get the sense that a lot of the scheduling issues are because the hospital does not run properly without the assistance of the clinical students, not because they think we need a certain number of hours of clinical time for the benefit of our education.

I really appreciate your advice - I'll absolutely take those to heart and hopefully there's nothing to be too anxious about!

 

[Syeira]

It sounds overdramatized to me, but I didn't go to that school. It sounds like they are saying "it is within the rights of the rotation coordinator to have you there any day of the week" etc. etc.

Technically, that was the case for my fourth year (that was a while ago, though). But in reality, most rotations didn't do that. IM, Sx, CritCare were probably the worst that I remember for hours/weekends.

But Dentistry, Ophtho, Derm, ClinPath, Cardio, Radiology, Ultrasound, GP, Public Health ...... those were all basically 9-5 M-F with minimal (if any) weekend stuff.

Carry snacks, get used to making food that you can eat on the fly.

Don't overinvest in your cases. I saw a few students overdoing it.... they'd sit in the hospital with that worried look on their face stewing about "their" (hahahahahahahaha) case at 9PM wandering around trying to talk to anybody about what an "awful" case they had when there really wasn't anything to do. Face it - if the case needs significant changes, you don't have the authority to make them, and no patient is helped by you sitting in the hospital worrying. You're not really its doctor, no matter how much they tell you to think like you are, so go home and get sleep.

Anyway. Dunno. If it's REALLY as bad as you're describing - which would surprise me - then I dunno what to say. But it sounds really over-exaggerated. Maybe just to get you used to the idea that yeah, you might have to be in the hospital late or on weekends. That's true - so you do need to make arrangements for pets and things. But at least in my case, usually you got a good idea on the first Monday of every rotation what it was going to be like and then you could deal with it. And the majority of rotations just weren't alllllll day in the hospital and allllll weekend.

ETA: As far as holidays. Shrug. It's one year. Losing them for one year ..... meh.

This is all super helpful advice - I hope you're right that it's just overdramatized to prepare us for the significant schedule change that is clinics! That makes more sense than us truly being at the hospital 24/7 - I can't imagine that anyone is able to work well under those conditions. I'm fully prepared to give up holidays/free time/a significant amount of autonomy over my schedule, because that's just what clinics is and the rewards are definitely worth the sacrifice! Just wanted to make sure that I'd still have time to eat/sleep/function and not totally give up my personal life. Your experience is super helpful, thanks so much for your input!

 

[Syeira]

I second KC’s entire post. There are definitely some long days and a few days on certain rotations where it’s hard to find time to eat more than a handful of pretzels shoved into my mouth, but for the most part I have weekends off or just a small amount to do and we get holidays off unless on call, treatments, or on Er. I second the suggestion to reach out to current clinical students and see how exaggerated that is

This is great to hear, thanks for sharing that! I'm totally prepared to have hectic days and roll with the punches, what you've described sounds much more manageable and realistic to expect from us. Hopefully the administration is just trying to prepare us and the 4th years are just a little burnt out and grumpy at this point in their clinical experience.

 

[JaynaAli]

Most of my rotations with weekend duties were either rotations where you had to come in mornings and evenings for patient care +/- short rounds or they were rotational 8 or 12 hour on call shifts that were shared amongst everyone and you had maybe 1 or 2 shifts the whole rotation. Granted I graduated over six years ago now but I definitely didn’t spend all week and all weekend at the hospital without at least a day or two where we were mostly off it definitely wasn’t 12+ hours every day for weeks on end. There were occasional days when you had an evening on call shift and you’d be there from like 7-7 for your regular rotation then have to be on call 6-2 or something but it was rare. Sure there were busy rotations where you had lots of inpatients that took a lot of time or had lots of paperwork (lookin at you surgery), but there were rotations like path and radiology that were 9-5 (or 10-5 with a 2-3 hr lunch). And even on busy rotations there’s downtime where you’re waiting on a doctor or your turn in radiology or whatever…be efficient and be doing your paperwork or anything you can during those free moments to get your stuff done and be able to leave once your required duties are done.

In regards to a year of rotations with only two weeks for vacation…that’s real life for the vast majority of working adults. It’s an adjustment from school life where you had weeks of vacation for sure but 2-3 weeks of vacation a year is very normal once you’re working a “real” job. I’ve been at two schools and one private specialty hospital plus a major diagnostic lab throughout the last seven years and all of these locations rotate holidays so that you get at least a weekend (or a whole week!) for thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years. Someone has to work the hospital, but you all work together to share duties and maximize time away at holidays.

 

[TheGirlWithTheFernTattoo]

So for the heavy hitter rotations at my school (ER/med, surgery), here is what the schedule looks like:

-Surgery: If you have inpatients, get to school at 7am or earlier to have treatments, SOAP, and client updates done by 8am rounds. Be at school until at least 7pm (need to do 6pm treatments, client updates, and then finish with whatever was going on during the day). On the weekends you are responsible for 8am/6pm treatments as well as transferring the case to the ER doc on AM rounds (probably 2-4 hours at school depending on what was going on). For on call, each student had to pick up 3 12 hour blocks of call over the rotation. I personally hated doing overnights during the week so I did one weekday overnight and then just picked up a 24 hour call on a weekend to get it over with. If you don't have inpatients, you get to school at 8am and leave as soon as PM rounds are done (whatever time those happen-anywhere from 5-8pm). You don't need to come in on the weekend unless it is your turn on call.

-ER: You have 3 scheduled days off in the 14 days. All of the other days you are scheduled for 12 hour shifts either 7am-7pm or 12pm-12am. You take cases for the first 10 hours, and the last 2 are reserved for paperwork. The criticalist at school has made it her life mission to improve work hours on this rotation so it is much better than it used to be. You are not expected to stay longer than 12 hours, and you can leave if you hit that point. You are only allowed to pick up a new case once your previous case is mostly finished. If you are done everything by the time you hit the 10 hour paperwork mark, you can leave then. I was at school 14 hours day 1 and 13 hours day 2, but that was because on day 1 I wanted to stay to see through the end of my case to know what happened, and on day 2 because I stayed to help the overnight intern for a bit because it was busy and I felt bad for her.

-Small Animal Med: If you have inpatients: Get to school at 7am or earlier to have treatments, SOAP, and client comms done by 8am rounds. See appointments/transfer cases all day, do 6pm treatments for your inpatients, leave after they and paperwork are done. If you don't have any inpatients and you are with the residents that don't like to mess around, you can be gone by 5-6pm. If you have inpatients you need to do weekend 8am/6pm treatments and transfer similar to surgery. This rotation doesn't have any on call. If you don't have inpatients you don't need to come in on the weekend.

-Large Animal Med/Surg: Not sure about these since I haven't taken them yet. Apparently you have call every 3-4 days, and the on call students are responsible for overnight patient treatments since the tech shortage hit the large animal side pretty hard. You do need to stay in the clinic and sleep there when on call. You supposedly get to come late the next day if you were up all night with a case, but my classmates have so far said that has not been their experience. I have this rotation during foaling season so I suspect it will be the one where I clock the most hours at school.

The rest of my rotations are mostly 9-5ish with weekends off and no call. On Onc I had an inpatient so had to do 8am/6pm treatments a couple times.

 

[battie]

If anything, I felt that clinical year was the year that I had the most extra time tbh; I was active in clubs and such during didactics, so I was constantly doing school stuff during those years. I learned to get paperwork done ASAP so that once I was home, it was videogame or hang out time (if you're browsing the internet out of boredom, you could be getting stuff done for your rotation instead as an example). I second the advice of not getting invested in cases. I do that now as a vet and it makes my days off so much better cause I don't think about work at home.

the schedule does not follow the AVMA's guidelines for duty hours during clinics, but the administration has simply responded that this just doesn't always work for our hospital and that those are "just guidelines, not rules."

Many (dare I say most?) schools don't follow these guidelines. My school kinda follows them, but not to a T for every service. My longest day was 26 hours and my longest week was 100 hours. But that was an exception, not the rule.

 

[TheDogFather]

My clinical year wasn't nearly as bad as you describe. If you are going to pursue an internship/residency and are cultivating instructors for good letters of recommendation you certainly can red line yourself. If you view fourth year for what it really is, and that is professional hazing, it is just something to put in your rear view mirror as quickly as possible. Take as many off-campus rotations as you can to gain a real-world perspective on veterinary medicine. A previous poster hit upon a great point: sitting there staring at a patient may gain you some brownie points, but it does nothing to affect the outcome of the case. Go home whenever you can. I can only speak for myself, but I'd say 70% of the instructors, residents, and interns are decent people, or at least tolerable. The other 30% are outright miserable human beings but their take on your performance will have no bearing on your career. No employer outside of academia is going to care if you got a 104/100 or a 72/100 evaluation on a rotation. Vet school is its own unrealistic little universe.

 

[genny]

If you view fourth year for what it really is, and that is professional hazing

Wow. It’s supposed to be a time to start practicing medicine while you still have the benefit of a strong safety net. Some clinicians are better at this than others.

 

[pinkpuppy9]

Hello folks! I'm a third year veterinary student starting my clinical year in the spring. As I'm going through the process of planning my clinical rotations and learning more about our schedule, I'm starting to get a little nervous about the workload associated with clinics. I'm incredibly excited to FINALLY start to put the pieces together and learn how to be a doctor, but I am very protective of my mental health/work life balance and I'm beginning to worry that it won't be possible to maintain these things during my clinical year.

Our schedule is pretty tough - 52 weeks of rotations with one two week break, but otherwise we are technically in our rotations 24/7, and each rotation lasts from Monday morning until the next Monday morning with no time off. For most rotations, we are expected to be present in the hospital from 5-6 AM until late in the evening, and we are expected to work all holidays and weekends. We are also expected to be on call every day for after hours duties. We do not receive any holidays or free days aside from our two week break. We don't have a lot of control over our rotations - we are able to prioritize our preferences, but we are told not to expect to get many of our preferences and that it's possible that even our top preferences will not be met. We are only allowed to have two external rotations, so we are confined to being in the school's hospital most of the time. We have been advised that we will likely not receive any lunch breaks on any of our rotations, and that we should organize among our friends so that we can select one person on an "easier" rotation to take care of essential tasks like grocery shopping, etc, for the entire group.

For those of you at different vet schools, is this fairly typical for a clinical year schedule? How do you all cope with the unpredictable and harrowing schedule? Any tips on how to thrive (or just survive) during your clinical year?

I see that you go to Auburn...I don't know much about their curriculum and off the top of my head, I don't know if I know anyone who has graduated from there.

Late nights and weekends/holidays are expected to be part of your clinical year. It isn't great, but it's also not every day. I don't know anyone in my class that regularly spent more than 12 hours at the hospital each day. The worst rotation I can remember was IM (tons of patients, so got there at 6 to be done with my SOAPs by rounds at 7/730 so I could present, early mornings on the weekends too). We were on call for anesthesia and surgery as well, but you split that with the other students on rotation with you so it wasn't more than 1-2 nights a week at most for me. I spent Thanksgiving with my classmates, we had a potluck and it was a ton of fun.

The schedule you are describing sounds more like my rotating intern schedule. 4th year was no big deal for me compared to my intern year. Echoing what LIS said...what after hours duties could a 4th year possibly have beyond the expected on-call for surgery/anesthesia? You're not expected to sleep cageside by patients. Your hospital should have overnight nurses that handle all treatments. You can't (and often don't get to) actually do anything. If someone asks you to do something, you do it, but it's not like your constant presence in the hospital is needed (or helpful).

I'd be curious to know more about what context the 'have someone be responsible for your grocery shopping' comment was made in. Was it from a current 4th year? Faculty?

 

[JaynaAli]

Your hospital should have overnight nurses that handle all treatments.

While I agree with pinkpuppy’s post and techs doing tech work should be the case, this one statement isn’t universally true. Where I went to school there was a rotation for students to be the ICU staff. Overnight it was one tech and two or three ICU students to care for all the inpatients in ICU and help triage the ER cases. On large animal rotations the day students had rotating night shifts to be the techs and do hourly checks/treatments from 6pm to like 2 am. They had underclassmen paid for like 2am-6am but it was students doing all their treatments and patient care all the rest of the time. Now, that doesn’t mean that you were there 24/7 doing it yourself for your patients…the small animal rotations had dedicated students to be the ICU techs and on large animal it was a rotating schedule shared amongst everyone on large animal. But it was not done by techs.

 

[cdo96]

Wow. It’s supposed to be a time to start practicing medicine while you still have the benefit of a strong safety net. Some clinicians are better at this than others.

At my school, 4th year was 100% professional hazing. My internship has been practicing high quality medicine with the strong safety net, but yeah no. There was no practicing medicine as a 4th year.

 

[Lupin21]

At my school, 4th year was 100% professional hazing. My internship has been practicing high quality medicine with the strong safety net, but yeah no. There was no practicing medicine as a 4th year.

That was not my experience, so I think it also is very person dependent unfortunately.