What is the work schedule like for IM attendings in non-teaching hospitals? Do they work night shift? Do they have the weekend off? Do they have clinics besides inpatient care?
Thank you
Thank you
Work schedule
- Thread starter depzr
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We have FP residents and med students on our service periodically but they don't carry the pager for us. It is going to depend heavily on the hospital but I typically work a weekend a month (usually in the MICU), cover down on the nocturnists when they are on leave (1-2 night a months usually, working a week night block next month). We don't have a empanelled outpatient clinic, we act as a specialist clinic since we don't have ID, Rheum, Nephro in house and see only consults. Average about 1-2 days a clinic a week and I like the setup since we usually are seeing interesting pathology that has already gotten a basic workup (aside from the chronic pain / fibro pts on the rheum side). It forces you to stretch your bounds a little and forces more interaction/learning with subspecialists instead of just mailing the pt off with a consult. My only wish is that our MICU acuity was higher since I am planning on doing a pulm/CCM fellowship eventually and feel a little rust accumulating regarding my really sick patient care.
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At many of the non-teaching hospitals and IM practice is 95%+ clinic. Multiple branches are closing the inpatient services of the small hospitals to save money. More than likely a military IM attending will almost work exclusively in clinic unless they are at a big teaching hospital. Then they will rotate on service, probably once every 4-6 weeks.
Agree, it is mostly clinic at a non-teaching military hospital. Most small to mid sized MTFs have hired hospitalists who work 5 days a week during the day. Call is split between the primary care folks (IM or FP). Call is typically one weekend a month to include some weekdays. This was how it was when I was staff for one year out of residency. It is similar now that I am a sub-specialist.
It boils down to where one is at but the majority of time will be clinic.
It was usually one week at a time to include a weekend. It was home call. Smaller MTFs are lower in acuity and the on call doc may have to come in once or twice in a week while on call. The hospitalist picked up the patient during the day On the weekends you had to round on the patient on Sat and Sunday.
Different MTFs have different call schedules as well as frequency. Where I am now, it is required to be in the hospital for call. There are three civilian hospitalists who cover the floor for the most part during the week. The military docs cover the gaps. I am a sub-specialist now so I am not in the call pool
We have 4 hospitalists: 2 civilian and 2 AD who cover the inpatient service and help teach FM residents. IM is in-house 24-7: the shifts are 12 hours for 7 days with both day (0700-1900) and night (1900-0700) shifts. The civilians work 7-on, 7-off, the AD work 7-on, 5-off with those other 2 days in clinic doing treadmills, specialty consults, pre-ops, Paps, acute appts, AOP, TCONs. When someone takes leave/TDY, the AD IMC docs fill in that 7-day slot with a 4-days off right after. IMC docs work business days, realistically 0800-1800. Our IM subspecialists no longer have to take call.
