What is third year going to be like?

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nope80

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Seriously, what can I expect in terms of hours, sleep, life, etc etc? I am a second year now that is dreading third year with every ounce of my body...but at the same time, I really don't have a solid grasp of what the hours are going to be like. At our school, we have to do surgery, peds, family practice, medicine, ob/gyn, and psych as third years. We have to create scheduling pretty soon and since I don't know what it is going to be like, I have no idea how I should schedule and what my general strategy for the year should be...? Any insight? Thanks so much!
 
Your hours will vary not only by rotation but also by specific team. I had to work less on medicine than some of my classmates because we just had fewer patients. But this was my average experience:

Surgery: 4:45am-6pm with q4 overnight call
Medicine: 6:45-4:30 or 5pm with q4 call until midnight (at the latest)
Psych: 8-4
Family Med: 8-5
Peds: 7-4 with q4 call until 11pm (at the latest)
Ob: 8-5 for outpatient, 6-6pm for labor and delivery, 6:30-3pm for benign surgery (this was at a regional hospital, all the surgeries were in the mornings)

You can expect to work weekends at least on surgery, medicine, peds, and OB. As far as what to schedule, the consensus is that it doesn't really matter. However, I had surgery first and really appreciated getting what was by far the worst rotation (for me) over with.
 
How many hours of reading would you say you have to do every night?
And on the weekends is it the same schedule as during the week?
I simply can't imagine 8 weeks like that on surgery!!!:scared::scared:
Do you think it may be "easier" to do certain dreaded rotations (like surgery) at the local hospitals that are smaller and maybe less intense? We have the option of doing our core rotations at affiliate hospitals which I feel like are smaller and maybe would involve a lighter demand (although i could be completely wrong).
 
nope80 said:
How many hours of reading would you say you have to do every night?
And on the weekends is it the same schedule as during the week?
I simply can't imagine 8 weeks like that on surgery!!!:scared::scared:
Do you think it may be "easier" to do certain dreaded rotations (like surgery) at the local hospitals that are smaller and maybe less intense? We have the option of doing our core rotations at affiliate hospitals which I feel like are smaller and maybe would involve a lighter demand (although i could be completely wrong).
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Usually weekends are lighter (unless you're on call). Sometimes it's just a matter of coming in the morning, rounding, getting paperwork done, then leaving. And as for the reading, on most rotations there usually is some downtime during the day to read. And if that was the case, I didn't read too much when I got home. Keep in mind that when you read about your patient's condition that is studying. And on my off days I would put in a few hours (4-5ish), more if the shelf were approaching.

I can definitely say that while my hours were longer during the clinical year, I "studied" a lot less. It's a lot better in many ways.

Also, if I were you I would definitely do surgery at a smaller hospital. Now if you're really interested in it then I wouldn't do that, but I knew I wasn't and I really disliked the rotation. So given that choice I would have done it in a less intense environment.
 
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Also, try not to worry too much yet. You get used to putting in full days and suddenly getting out at 4 or 5 is amazing. That's another reason why having surgery first was great to me...after those hours, anything was doable. You'll make it through, even if you have to mentally live weekend to weekend.
 
MrBurns10 said:
Your hours will vary not only by rotation but also by specific team. I had to work less on medicine than some of my classmates because we just had fewer patients. But this was my average experience:

Surgery: 4:45am-6pm with q4 overnight call
Medicine: 6:45-4:30 or 5pm with q4 call until midnight (at the latest)
Psych: 8-4
Family Med: 8-5
Peds: 7-4 with q4 call until 11pm (at the latest)
Ob: 8-5 for outpatient, 6-6pm for labor and delivery, 6:30-3pm for benign surgery (this was at a regional hospital, all the surgeries were in the mornings)

You can expect to work weekends at least on surgery, medicine, peds, and OB. As far as what to schedule, the consensus is that it doesn't really matter. However, I had surgery first and really appreciated getting what was by far the worst rotation (for me) over with.
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This is fairly typical, maybe more or less depending on specific teams/hospitals as stated. Also time of year plays a part -- you'll need more time in the am for SOAP notes in August than in May, and your team will be less organized (new interns and such) and take longer to get out in the pm.
 
MrBurns10 said:
Your hours will vary not only by rotation but also by specific team. I had to work less on medicine than some of my classmates because we just had fewer patients. But this was my average experience:

Surgery: 4:45am-6pm with q4 overnight call
Medicine: 6:45-4:30 or 5pm with q4 call until midnight (at the latest)
Psych: 8-4
Family Med: 8-5
Peds: 7-4 with q4 call until 11pm (at the latest)
Ob: 8-5 for outpatient, 6-6pm for labor and delivery, 6:30-3pm for benign surgery (this was at a regional hospital, all the surgeries were in the mornings)

You can expect to work weekends at least on surgery, medicine, peds, and OB. As far as what to schedule, the consensus is that it doesn't really matter. However, I had surgery first and really appreciated getting what was by far the worst rotation (for me) over with.
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Agree that this is pretty typical except that some places have q3 call for at least part of your rotation, and many also have call during rotations like OB.

Most people actually like 3d year, so OP you shouldn't stress. It's going to be a lot of hours, and you are going to be tired, but you will find it rewarding and at times even fun or cool (depending on your interests).
 
Third year should be something you look forward to - unless you're already planning on doing radiology and the thought of patients scares you.

The biggest thing, regardless of what your schedule actually ends up being (mine was no where near as intense as that listed above) is that you have to get used to not being in control of your schedule. You give a lot of choice as a third year - you have to be where other people want you, when they want you there. As a pre-clinical student, you get to choose when, where, and how long you're going to study, but that's simply not the case as a third year.

As MrBurns said, a lot depends on your school, and then on the services you're on. My school is very good at getting you a variety of exposure to different things on each rotation, usually each one had some time set aside for a "selective" within the field (except for FM). Even if there was no student options, we tended to rotate through a number of different services for each clerkship (ie on OB/GYN, there was two weeks outpatient, 1 week GYN Surg, 1 week GYN ONC, and 2 weeks L&D). For me it broke down like this:

Surgery -
4 weeks of general (at community hospital): 5:45am - 6pm at the absolute latest M-F, 8am to noon Saturday, no call. I was told specifically by my resident NOT to go clinic, and was usually dismissed after doing post-ops after the last case of the day. I did have one night of trauma call.
2 weeks peds ortho - 6am - 330pm (if in the OR), 5pm (if clinic) - no call.
2 weeks ENT - 730am - end of last case - usually 4 or so, except for one that was 8:30pm.

Peds - Inpatient was 6am to 4:30pm, they were VERY adamant about getting check out done on time, call has recently changed, but I think it's q5. Outpatient was 8am-4pm and students were not to take patients after 3:30pm.

Family - was a rural rotation - usually 730am - 5pm, technically was on-call always, but the nurses never, ever remembered to call me (even though I was sleeping across the street).

Medicine - 6 weeks of inpatient 6:45am to 5pm - by this point my residents simply said show up in time to get all your notes done by the time we round at 8am. Sometimes that meant I showed up at 7:30. Call was kind of weird because it was the VA, but averaged q5.

Psych - Inpatient 730 to noon. Students were required to do a complete H&P within 24 hours of admission. The other student on service and I split afternoons for admissions, but we were allowed to leave the unit, go home and call in to check if there were any admissions up until 5pm. No call. The other parts of the rotation were about the same...but without the afternoons.

OB/GYN: L&D was the most demanding - but I had it the last 2 weeks of third year so by that time I was really efficient with my notes - still I was there by 5:15 most days because I was carrying 5 or 6 MFM patients and we'd round at 6:15. If not on call, we'd usually leave about 3pm. Call was Q3. No call the remaining 4 weeks, and usually there at 7am for student conference.
 
BigRedBeta said:
Third year should be something you look forward to - unless you're already planning on doing radiology and the thought of patients scares you.
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They don't scare me, they bore me 🙂
 
MrBurns10 said:
Your hours will vary not only by rotation but also by specific team. I had to work less on medicine than some of my classmates because we just had fewer patients. But this was my average experience:

Surgery: 4:45am-6pm with q4 overnight call
Medicine: 6:45-4:30 or 5pm with q4 call until midnight (at the latest)
Psych: 8-4
Family Med: 8-5
Peds: 7-4 with q4 call until 11pm (at the latest)
Ob: 8-5 for outpatient, 6-6pm for labor and delivery, 6:30-3pm for benign surgery (this was at a regional hospital, all the surgeries were in the mornings)
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This is a good deal lighter than my school's schedule, unfortunately for us. I like how very little overnight call you have (we take overnight call for Ob, Peds, Medicine, Surgery, and even on Family).

Your mileage may vary.
 
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-Goose- said:
This is a good deal lighter than my school's schedule, unfortunately for us. I like how very little overnight call you have (we take overnight call for Ob, Peds, Medicine, Surgery, and even on Family).

Your mileage may vary.
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Yeah it really wasn't that bad. We had to do three overnights on OB but those were strictly overnights...6pm-8am. Really not too bad.

And overnights on family?
 
your strategy should be to study for your step 1 and not worry about third year yet. people can make a case for any rotation schedule.
 
MrBurns10 said:
Yeah it really wasn't that bad. We had to do three overnights on OB but those were strictly overnights...6pm-8am. Really not too bad.

And overnights on family?
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I know man. It sucks. It's only 2 calls in 1 month, but still... It's FM.

Our calls for OB were ~28 hours. Peds call is 30+ and approximately Q4. I guess they don't want anyone going into peds.
 
nope80 said:
How many hours of reading would you say you have to do every night?
And on the weekends is it the same schedule as during the week?
I simply can't imagine 8 weeks like that on surgery!!!:scared::scared:
Do you think it may be "easier" to do certain dreaded rotations (like surgery) at the local hospitals that are smaller and maybe less intense? We have the option of doing our core rotations at affiliate hospitals which I feel like are smaller and maybe would involve a lighter demand (although i could be completely wrong).
Click to expand...

Have you ever had a job before?

3rd year is not bad at all. OB/Gyn has hard hours, surgery has hard hours, but other rotations have easier hours. If you've worked construction or something like that you'll find that 12 hours in a hospital is much easier than 12 hours hanging drywall or laying asphalt.
 
indo said:
Have you ever had a job before?

3rd year is not bad at all. OB/Gyn has hard hours, surgery has hard hours, but other rotations have easier hours. If you've worked construction or something like that you'll find that 12 hours in a hospital is much easier than 12 hours hanging drywall or laying asphalt.
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Agree with the sentiment -- lots of folks work 12 hour/day jobs outside of healthcare - I sure did. But there's something a bit unique about being in the hospital for 30+ hours straight on a call which tends not to be replicated elsewhere. Not that it's so bad or that you shouldn't experience this first hand before residency, but it's just different. But again, 3rd year is not something to dread -- it's something to look forward to, notwithstanding the hours.
 
indo said:
Have you ever had a job before?

3rd year is not bad at all. OB/Gyn has hard hours, surgery has hard hours, but other rotations have easier hours. If you've worked construction or something like that you'll find that 12 hours in a hospital is much easier than 12 hours hanging drywall or laying asphalt.
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Depends on the rotation. 😀 I'd much rather do surgery for 12 hours in a day than landscaping, but I'd rather landscape for 12 hours than do psychiatry for 12 hours.


And no, a lot of people on SDN have never had more than a part-part-time job.
 
-Goose- said:
I know man. It sucks. It's only 2 calls in 1 month, but still... It's FM.

Our calls for OB were ~28 hours. Peds call is 30+ and approximately Q4. I guess they don't want anyone going into peds.
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The interesting thing is how much this varies by rotation location. I think I'm at the same school as Burnsie, and at one L&D location there is Q4 "24" hour (read: usually at least 26 hours). Additionally, for Medicine while we are supposed to get out by 12PM on call nights, at some sites students will often first get to see an admit at 12PM, which means that by the time you do and write up the H&P you have maybe two hours to sleep before prerounding at 5 and not getting out until 5PM the next day. I think the key is that your mileage may vary and you really can't predict anything about your schedule for the year.
 
JacobSilge said:
The interesting thing is how much this varies by rotation location. I think I'm at the same school as Burnsie, and at one L&D location there is Q4 "24" hour (read: usually at least 26 hours). Additionally, for Medicine while we are supposed to get out by 12PM on call nights, at some sites students will often first get to see an admit at 12PM, which means that by the time you do and write up the H&P you have maybe two hours to sleep before prerounding at 5 and not getting out until 5PM the next day. I think the key is that your mileage may vary and you really can't predict anything about your schedule for the year.
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Word. The last couple weeks of medicine at the Reg I went home about 2pm everyday. Meanwhile, a classmate of mine had to stay until 5-6 everyday because her resident would make her stay until she got her dictations done (which is ridiculous). It's totally team-dependent.
 
learn to kiss butt, do it a lot, you'll do great
 
My friend, everyone's talking about the hours, but it isn't the hours that will kill you. It will be malignant attendings and residents on rotations you absolutely HATE.

For me it's family practice. Hey, let's run frantically from room to room to talk for 15 minutes with each patient about walking, rowing, weight-bearing exercises, fish oil and broccoli! If we're lucky we'll get to do "procedures" like freezing off warts or clearing ear wax.

Even though it theoretically finishes at 5pm, I'd rather do something less stupid until 8 or 9.
 
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TheProwler said:
Depends on the rotation. 😀 I'd much rather do surgery for 12 hours in a day than landscaping, but I'd rather landscape for 12 hours than do psychiatry for 12 hours.


And no, a lot of people on SDN have never had more than a part-part-time job.
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ha...psychiatry for 12 hours. Like that has ever happened.
"Whoa! It is 3 o'clock! We can't take a new patient this late!"
 
indo said:
ha...psychiatry for 12 hours. Like that has ever happened.
"Whoa! It is 3 o'clock! We can't take a new patient this late!"
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The EDs at some places tend to bump the psych patients up to the floors toward the end of the day before the shift changes, so they don't have to sign out on them. So if you are on psych you may periodically end up having to work up a patient right as you were planning to leave for the day. If you got to leave at 3pm daily, you lucked out -- that's not the norm everywhere.
 
Law2Doc said:
The EDs at some places tend to bump the psych patients up to the floors toward the end of the day before the shift changes, so they don't have to sign out on them. So if you are on psych you may periodically end up having to work up a patient right as you were planning to leave for the day. If you got to leave at 3pm daily, you lucked out -- that's not the norm everywhere.
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My psych rotation had hours usually from 7:45-6:30 (unless there was a Cubs game, then I got let out early), and sometimes I started at 6:15 if there was ECT. Horrible. Surgery was much more enjoyable despite the hours.
 
Ashers said:
My psych rotation had hours usually from 7:45-6:30 (unless there was a Cubs game, then I got let out early), and sometimes I started at 6:15 if there was ECT. Horrible. Surgery was much more enjoyable despite the hours.
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one of my friends was at the VA for 3-4 hours a day for psych, and that was it.
 
I had:
surgery:scared: 6-6 with one day extra 4 hours (could make it 6-7 4 days a week or 6-6 4 days and 6-10 the other during the week) and only one overnight call. One day on the weekend.

OB- 😱week of L&D days 7am-5p; week of L&D nights 5pm-7 am (more like 7:45 with checkout); week of clinic 5:45-3; week of newborn 8-4:30 (although some of my classmates had 9-3).

Medicine- 🙂 call q4 (last admit 11pm). Post-call would usually leave by 12-2 (we had mandatory lectures and had to attend even if post-call). Variable schedule depending on call post-call and number of pts. Had to have all notes done before morning report so usually 6:45-? (anywhere from 2, 5, overnight) unless post call and then note writing started around 4.

Peds- 😀 call q4 (24 hour call). Hours otherwise 7-? (3-4 most days not on call)

Psych- 😉 7-5, call q8

Neuro- 🙄 7-5:30/6 with only one call.

EM 😍- 1 week of overnights (11p=7a), 1 week of nights (3-11) and week of days (7a-3p) with one peds shift 7p-3am and one EMS ridealong Weeks consisted of 3-4 shifts. Lectures M/T mornings.
 
-Goose- said:
I know man. It sucks. It's only 2 calls in 1 month, but still... It's FM.

Our calls for OB were ~28 hours. Peds call is 30+ and approximately Q4. I guess they don't want anyone going into peds.
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This is something I don't understand. Some of our programs which have a harder time attracting non-IMG residents end up giving us a schedule worse than that of the interns! It seems like they'd want to give us a good experience that would make us consider their field, rather than pushing us in the opposite direction.


To the OP: Third year is tough, no doubt about it. But it's also completely doable. There are some really tough months, but even those aren't as bad as you'd think. I honestly don't know why you'd dread year, you chose to go into medicine and that's exactly what M3 is. There are very few "easy" fields in medicine, get used to the hours now or you are going to be miserable for a long time.
 
Mine:
-Medicine wards (6 wks): 6a to 5p, q4 call but typically out by 9p, 6 days/wk.
-Medicine clinic (2 wks): 8a to 5p, no call, 5 days/wk.
-Medicine elective -- Cardiology (2 wks): 8a to 5p, no call, 5 days/wk
-Neurology (2 wks): 5a to 7p, q5 call out by 10p, 6 days/wk.

-L&D (2 wks): 7 to 7 shifts, one on days the other nights, weekend off on changeover between the two, no call.
-MFM/Reprod/GynOnc (2 wks): 9a to 4p, no call, 5 days/wk.
-OB ER (1 wk): 5a to 5p shifts, no call, 6 days/wk.
-Gyn surg (2 wks): 5a to 6p, call q4 overnight, 6 days/wk.
-OB clinic (1 wk): 8a to 5p, no call, 5 days/wk.

-Peds wards (6 wks): 6a to 5p, call q4 out by midnight, 6 days/wk.
-Peds elective -- GI (2 wks): 7a to 4p, no call, 5 days/wk.
-Peds clinics (2 am/wk throughout 8 wk rotation): 7a to 12p.

-Gen Surgery wards (6 wks): 4a to 6p, trauma call q5 overnight, 6 days/wk.
-VA surgery wards (3 wks): 5a to 5p, no call, 6 days/wk.
-Surgery elective -- Peds (2 wks): 4a to 6p, call q5 overnight, 6 days/wk.
-Surgery elective -- ENT (2 wks): 8a to 4p, no call, 5 days/wk.
-Surgery elective -- Neurosurg (2 wks): 5a to 8p, call q4 overnight, 6 days/wk.
-Surg clinics (2 am/wk throughout 12 wk rotation): 8a to 12p.

-Psychiatry wards (4 wks): 7a to 2p, call q6 out by 10p, 6 days/wk.
-Child Psych (1 wk): 8a to 11a, no call, weekends off.
-Psych clinic (1 wk): 8a to 5p, no call, weekends off.

-FM clinic (4 wks): 6a to 7p, call technically q4 but never summoned, 5.5 days/wk.
-FM wards (2 wks): 7a to 4p, call q6 out by 8p, 6 days/wk.

As stated usually off one weekend day, the other is typically like 8a to 1p or something. Lectures dispersed throughout, to a varying degree depending on the rotation. Surgery was 4/wk, Medicine more like 2/day not even counting signins or lunch speakers. Off a week for Christmas, a half week for Spring Break and Thanksgiving, a day here or there for board review, otherwise straight on through. So glad it's over.

Scheduling strategy you can do a search on, but basically it doesn't matter. Do stuff you don't care about first, stuff you want to impress on later. Surgery before OB if you want to do OB or vice versa. Coast into the year vs. coast out (I chose the latter), in the end the schedule doesn't matter too much.
 
Law2Doc said:
The EDs at some places tend to bump the psych patients up to the floors toward the end of the day before the shift changes, so they don't have to sign out on them. So if you are on psych you may periodically end up having to work up a patient right as you were planning to leave for the day. If you got to leave at 3pm daily, you lucked out -- that's not the norm everywhere.
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I was on a consult service at a VA hospital so I never left by 3. The good news is that the ED would admit directly to the inpatient psych ward, bypassing my team, or to a medicine team, delaying our involvement until tomorrow or whenever the patient made it through DTs. The students over at the county mental health facility were golfing by 2pm, however.
 
My schedule so far has been:
Surgery 5:00 AM-6:00 PM, overnight call q6, one weekend day/month
Anesthesia 7:30 AM-4:00 PM, no call, no weekends
Ortho 8:30 AM-4:00 PM, no call, no weekends
IM 6:30 AM-5:00 PM, short call 5:00 PM-9:00 PM once a week, no weekends
Cardiology 8:30 AM-3:30 PM, no call, no weekends

Guess I've been pretty lucky.
 
Dancing Doctor said:
My schedule so far has been:
Surgery 5:00 AM-6:00 PM, overnight call q6, one weekend day/month
Anesthesia 7:30 AM-4:00 PM, no call, no weekends
Ortho 8:30 AM-4:00 PM, no call, no weekends
IM 6:30 AM-5:00 PM, short call 5:00 PM-9:00 PM once a week, no weekends
Cardiology 8:30 AM-3:30 PM, no call, no weekends

Guess I've been pretty lucky.
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Extremely lucky. A lot of folks have q3 or q4 call during some of those rotations (surgery, medicine), and get 4 days off a month and otherwise work weekends rather than the "one weekend day/month". I'd say you have it extremely cushy, considering the rest of the core rotations are traditionally easier.
 
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-Goose- said:
This is a good deal lighter than my school's schedule, unfortunately for us. I like how very little overnight call you have (we take overnight call for Ob, Peds, Medicine, Surgery, and even on Family).

Your mileage may vary.
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FM call! That just sucks. We weren't even in the hospital for FM. We did have to do 3 evenings at our volunteer clinic, but that was it.

As mentioned above, it really varies based on your school, rotation, time of year, etc.. Some rotations are ridiculously easy. For example, right now I'm on geriatrics (not required at most schools, I know), and my schedule is so light -- no weekends, free afternoons a couple of times a week, and a long day is basically 8 to 3. Also, medicine is q5 at my school, and I think surgery is q5, too. Some schools don't even have true overnight call even for surgery because they don't have call rooms.

Here's how my schedule has been so far --

Ob/gyn -- one weekend call (8 am to 8 am) with the rest of the weekends free. 2 weeks L&D from 6 am to ~ 7 pm. 1 week clinic from 8 am to ~6 pm. 1 week MFM, which was 6 am to 4 or so pm (weak part of the rotation). 2 weeks gyn surgery from 6 am to whenever -- I was there until 8 pm once but usually went home around 5 or 6. All the rotations after us have had to do one week of L&D nights, which are 6 pm to 6 am.

Derm selective -- 8:00 to 5 M-Th and 8-2 Friday

FM -- M-F 8:30 to 5. 3 nights of "call" where we had to work at our volunteer clinic.

Geriatrics -- 2 weeks of clinic for 8:30 to noon with lectures, nursing home visits, etc. in the afternoon. 2 weeks inpatient of 7 am to noon with afternoons the same as clinic. No weekends, no nights.
 
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Dancing Doctor said:
My schedule so far has been:
Surgery 5:00 AM-6:00 PM, overnight call q6, one weekend day/month
Anesthesia 7:30 AM-4:00 PM, no call, no weekends
Ortho 8:30 AM-4:00 PM, no call, no weekends
IM 6:30 AM-5:00 PM, short call 5:00 PM-9:00 PM once a week, no weekends
Cardiology 8:30 AM-3:30 PM, no call, no weekends

Guess I've been pretty lucky.
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geez. I haven't had a day off in two weeks, and I just woke up from being post-call. I wish we had more weekends off - I might actually study.
 
Oh yeah, my thoughts on schedule. You can see my schedule in my sig, and it really wasn't my first choice, but it works for me. The pluses are that I started with something hard, have the things I'm interested in the middle of the year (when I'm a little sharper and not yet burnt out), and I have imo a good pattern of alternating harder and easier rotations. I've got to admit I'm not too hyped about ending with surgery, but I figure it won't be horrible because I don't want to do it and will probably be unmotivated at that point -- the MS4s at my school who did surgery last said they spent most of the time hanging out in the call room. Also, peds is supposedly a moderately hard rotation at my school, so I have more hard stuff than I'd like in the second half of the year. That's where it's important to talk to the class above you to get the inside scoop on how things work at your school.
 
Yeah, I agree with whoever said to just study for step 1.
Study hard, do well. Then third year will be less stressful.
You can still work really hard, you just won't have to worry about impressing every damn doctor you meet so you can get outstanding letters. You'll still want great letters, there' just a lot less pressure.
 
What I've had so far:

OB - 6:30 to whenever signout is. Usually about 12 hours. Plus 3 overnight calls in the 6 weeks.
Peds - 6:30-~5 inpatient, regular 9-5 ish outpatient, call q5 nights or weekends.
Family Med - 9-5, no call. Sad to be leaving this 🙁

Med and Surg have fairly heady schedules here - so does Neuro if I get inpatient. Psych varies.
 
A lot depends on your school requirements. We really don't have a lot of call requirements. I think I have 2 nights of call throughout my 8 weeks of IM. And maybe 1 or 2 on OB. That's about it. However, don't expect psych to be short hours. I have had 10-12 hour days with one of the attendings.
 
Updating my schedule requirement list with my upcoming IM schedule -- long call q5, short call where you're usually there until around 5 is also q5. The rest of the days you usually show up to round, having some lectures, and I think have a decent amount of free afternoons.
 
Just remember, even if you're miserable, hating life, and wondering why on earth you decided to go into medicine; the rotation you're on will end. And the next rotation probably won't be as bad.

Third year has the highest highs and the lowest lows.
 
third year is going to be awesome. seriously. you will love it!!
 
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TracksuitsRock said:
third year is going to be awesome. seriously. you will love it!!
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OMFG, PLEASE DON'T GO AROUND SAYING STUFF LIKE THIS. yOURE JUST SETTING PEOPLE UP FOR FAILURE AND COMPLETE DISSAPOINTMENT. IF IT WERE THAT AWESOME, THERE WOULD BE TONS OF POSTS SAYING "i LOVE THRID YEAR". nOT i HATE THIS AND THAT.
 
haha,

yeah, i wish upper classmen would have just been honest with me from the get-go about the severity of disrespect, condescension, rude/nasty/petty behavior, and malignancy i was doomed to encounter in third year. thankfully i've been around the block a time or two, and my suspicion about what was really up was true. sure, residents are tired, but still it's no excuse to be rude or unprofessional and uncivilized to peers and underlings...don't believe the hype...this is not the way the real world works, kids. and yup, it all really begins with the dysfunctional and completely unhappy/miserable attendings....**** flows downhill --don't forget

perhaps those who think it doesn't suck have never held a real job in a real career before med school. if you buy this form of thinking, you are DOOMED to repeat this cycle of abuse and Fckucked up-ed-ness when you someday are an attending (god forbid)

i can assure you that 3rd year and medical training in general in no way, shape,or form represents how most professionals are trained. if you want to be treated like crap, just join the military....trust me, it will be much less of a headache

in any other job, law suits would be flying like crazy, and there would be a severe shortage of employees...

for some odd reason, med students buy into this crap that hazing is necessary and hey! even GOOD for you...it makes you stronger!! ha...what a bunch of ****.

long story short...3rd year sucks when you're not doing the specialty you wanna do...which is like pretty much most of the time...and to make matters worse, the icing on the cake is the *****holes you will be forced to work with....and PLEASE don't take offense to being treated badly....GEEZ!! what thin skins you have! if you do.....better learn to roll with it if you wanna survive the game

and i hear it only gets worse in residency

WTF were we all thinking?
 
oh, and most importantly don't lose your compassion

remember all those ridiculous 'sensitivity' courses they made us take in the first 2 years?

another cruel joke....

all so third year, and training in general, can sting extra bad on that soft, thin, SENSITIVE skin we all have cuz we're oh so sweet, and compassionate, and trained to be 'caring'....blah blah..... BS.

you can't beat a child and then fault him for becoming hard and cold..if this profession wants to change what they produce, then they need to start at the source...

it should be the other way around, you see. ATTENDINGs should be FORCED to take sensitivity classes the way i see it
 
JaSam said:
OMFG, PLEASE DON'T GO AROUND SAYING STUFF LIKE THIS. yOURE JUST SETTING PEOPLE UP FOR FAILURE AND COMPLETE DISSAPOINTMENT. IF IT WERE THAT AWESOME, THERE WOULD BE TONS OF POSTS SAYING "i LOVE THRID YEAR". nOT i HATE THIS AND THAT.
Click to expand...

Good lord...
 
lil pook said:
oh, and most importantly don't lose your compassion

remember all those ridiculous 'sensitivity' courses they made us take in the first 2 years?

another cruel joke....

all so third year, and training in general, can sting extra bad on that soft, thin, SENSITIVE skin we all have cuz we're oh so sweet, and compassionate, and trained to be 'caring'....blah blah..... BS.

you can't beat a child and then fault him for becoming hard and cold..if this profession wants to change what they produce, then they need to start at the source...

it should be the other way around, you see. ATTENDINGs should be FORCED to take sensitivity classes the way i see it
Click to expand...


Listen to this man, he speaks truth. Honestly though , that whole compasion bs that they teach u. Yea throw it out the window now. Because by the time you get to residency and work more hours than you can ever imagine and take crap and abuse left and right, yea I wanna see how much human compassion u have left. Ur basically a robot by then. And each patient is just another time bomb that u have to look after and make sure it doesn't explode before your signout.

The guy above is also correct. It all does flow downhill. And guess who's at the very bottom. HYES! YOU ARE!! Lucky excited, naiive 3rd year medical student! YOU ARE. Who's the chief resident gonna yell at ? The attending? Hell no. HEs gonna yell at the person below him and so forth.

Look what i've learn from 3rd year is minimal, but i have learned this one thing. Whenver u get a Good or great attending/resident/med student/whatever to work with. Thank your lucky stars. And absolutely enjoy every minute of it. Be happy about that. Cuz you will see what a big difference it is when you get on a bad team or have to work with as another post puts it "jerk residents".

I don't know about others but when youre working with a terrible group of people in 3rd year (and it will happen) or a horrible attending, its kinda like dying. And with death, you want to make it as painless as possible so just shut your mouth and do as your told cuz sooner or later, that bad period has to end at some point.
 
JaSam said:
OMFG, PLEASE DON'T GO AROUND SAYING STUFF LIKE THIS. yOURE JUST SETTING PEOPLE UP FOR FAILURE AND COMPLETE DISSAPOINTMENT. IF IT WERE THAT AWESOME, THERE WOULD BE TONS OF POSTS SAYING "i LOVE THRID YEAR". nOT i HATE THIS AND THAT.
Click to expand...

Ugh, please don't ever post like that again (reverse capitalization).

There are lots of people who love third year. Those posts wouldn't be nearly as fun though. People like to complain, especially on internet boards where other people may commiserate.

In real life, you get the M3s telling M1s and M2s "M3 year is sooooo much better than the first 2 years. Yeah, you may be tired, but you're doing something you actually want to do and applying what you learned."
 
We just had a recruitment day for my campus for clinical years, and the general message from most 3rd years was that 3rd year is much better than 1st and 2nd year. I've got to say, though, that I'm not there, but my feelings are partially clouded by being on an insane team where everyone hates everyone, and all our patients are dying. So that's the suck about 3rd year -- you've got to deal with people you don't like, and the hours are a lot worse. It's also a drag when you're rotating in something you don't like.

You are actually doing stuff and seeing patients, which is cool, but I'm missing 2nd year right now. I haven't that felt that way all year, though, and hopefully won't continue to feel this way.
 
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