Avg number of hours worked per week by type of residency?

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peony

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I have been trying in vain to find some information about this. Does anyone know if this information is posted online somewhere? I'm sure it varies by school, but I'd love to know what the averages are. Thanks!

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Thanks, they do! For some reason radiology isn't on there though, hmm.
 
Thanks RTrain, but I'm actually looking for "regular" radiology, not diagnostic.
 
Whoops, my eyes read "diagnostic" but my brain thought "interventional." Thanks!
 
Just as an FYI:


These numbers vary widely between locations. A "lifestyle" residency at some places might be super hardcore at another place. Plus, residency is a temporary, often painful period in your training. It's not a permanent condition. Being an attending gives one much more control over lifestyle issues (so I'm told).
 
Numbers are going to vary widely between different residency types, hospital types, and residency programs. Iserson's has a rough guide to this.

Does your husband have any idea what he's interested in?
 
Really, there is almost no reason to have this information. And outside of iffy resources like FREIDA, there aren't valid databases which compare across all specialties. Even if you got the info from ACGME, considering that programs that exceed hours on a regular basis often lie, its not really helpful if the data is skewed because people are lying to ACGME.

Without getting into a discussion of whether or not you are choosing a specialty based on the hours, as Pilot Doc notes, the hours will vary widely from program to program and within rotations. Looking at a website like FREIDA, which is self-report and notoriously inaccurate, and seeing that a program lists average hours as 60/week is really of no help unless you realize that "average" probably means "least number of hours" and that in some cases you may work many many more. You might work less, but that's unlikely.

The FREIDA database is filled out by some administrative type who often has no connection with the real clinical duties completed by residents. For example, I'm looking at my residency program...in their favor, they list average hours worked per week as 80. Of course, that's generally not true, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But I can see several things that are wrong, like amount of home call, average length of call, etc.

The point is that:

1) these things are inaccurate at best; fraudulent at worst
2) they don't paint the entire picture - hours will vary from program to program and depending on the census, work load, and rotation
3) as Pilot Doc notes, residency is a short period of time in your life. Choosing a program based on hours, when most of them will not vary significantly, seems a bit short-sighted to me.
 
Hi Blade28. My husband actually decided that he's not doing a residency, so I'm asking for myself. :) By the time I get to residency we'll likely have a child or two, so hours worked is definitely is a consideration for me. Though I know that residency is only 4 yrs or so of my life, it will still be the most intense period of my training and our kids will be fairly young, so I'd like to be around as much as possible for them (within certain constraints of a very time consuming career!). Of course that isn't my only consideration in chosing a field, but it's a big one. I'm hoping to work part time (or at least no more than 40 hrs per week) when I'm an attending.

Too bad that the numbers are apparently inaccurate though, but good to know that programs vary. What is the best way to get the "real deal" on hours worked about a specific program? It seems that even if these numbers are incorrect at least they reflect some hierarchical truths between specialities, if not absolute truth.
 
It seems way too early to be worrying about this - I'd wait until your MS-III rotations, when you can see what you like. Just keep an open mind until then.

Lifestyle doesn't mean anything if you don't enjoy the field you're in.
 
Blade, very true! :) I tend to be a mega-big planner, so sometimes that's hard though!
 
Blade, very true! :) I tend to be a mega-big planner, so sometimes that's hard though!

Believe me, I was the same way too. But it's just too early. :) Life's too short to worry about it at this stage!
 
If the only thing people worried about was lifestyle then we'd all be gas passers or radiologists. I "tried" both as an MS-4 and I could much better tolerate the hours of surgery than either of those fields (even though obviously they have much better hours). It's all about what interests you and energizes you. Good luck!
 
Hours as a resident seem to correspond pretty closely to hours in practice. The fewest hours for residency will therefore probably be seen in things such as Derm, Psychiatry, PM&R, etc.
 
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