I had a close friend that trained at utsw, she said she worked hard but loved her ca1 year. She ended up transferring to another program in the south for family/geographical reasons and she was so miserable she quit at the end of CA2 year. I think malignant is relative. I think people have unrealistic expectations of how much they'll be working. It's really the environment that matters. She said at utsw, she felt like the pd and chair really cared and for the most part, the attendings were good to work with. (Maybe this was in retrospect relative to the new program). They also have a #relief system, which makes things seem more fair. At the other program she'd often be there till 10, violate the 10hr rule consistently w malignant attendings that were not resident advocates. They would often disappear all day- forget to give lunch breaks, etc. It was a very stressful environment. I hink in general, you can be ok working long hours if you like who you're working with. If the culture in general is nice and you feel that people are trying to help you, you feel a lot better about showing up to work. At my program- we have to do a few months w gen surg the first year and they are actually really nice. Even the surgery attendings are nice. The neurosurgeons are the kindest. Most anesthesia attendings are easy to work with. There's a clique of mean grls that like to talk smack all day and can be very discouraging, but I assume that's everywhere. The above poster talked about getting picked on, I'm in a small program, and I was definitely one of those. Luckily, everyone important- the PD, assistant PDs, site director were my biggest advocates. They genuinely care about me and want to see me succeed. Really look at how involved the PD is w the program. Is he just concerned about numbers, is it just a title, or does he want to change the world? Lol My PD is always saying things like, you're not here to impress attendings, you're here to learn. That makes me really comfortable that if I want to use the miller 2 all day bc I suck at it, that even if it gets back to him that I couldn't intubate all day, he doesn't care. The culture here is to help every resident, even moral (as mine was low after some of those attending comments). Don't underestimate the importance of your PD!
Bottom line you're going to work hard everywhere, bc when you're not working, you should allow some time for studying. Even though people can't tell you how it really is at lunch, if there's a lot of them there and they seem happy, it's a good sign. When you hate your program, you are not willing to stick around for the show. Remember you're going to be there for four years! It doesn't go by quick! You have to like going to work. 50hrs at a crappy place is worse than 60hr at a job you like or don't mind.