I'll start by being 100% clear that I'm trying to explain what programs might / could do. None of what I'm saying here has anything to do with what we are doing. We will make sure that everyone gets their vacation. We are allowing residents to cancel and reschedule their vacation time if they wish. If we were to force residents to work instead of take vacation, I expect we would pay them for that (unnecessary at the moment).
Ok, with that out of the way, here we go.
I would start getting"sick" and take the timeoff anyways. i dont think it's legal one way or the other.
All due respect, this is a horrible idea. Falsely calling in sick is a fire-able offence. No second chances, no remediation plan. Any "explanation" that you did it because your PTO was taken will fall on deaf ears. The success or failure of legal action over something like this will depend on so many details that it's impossible to predict, but it would take years and your career could be in tatters.
umm it's also illegal for a program to not give PTO actually- there are ACGME standards and there is no reason whatsoever that residents shouldn't get PTO. residents are not that essential and in most states in the nation the situation is not so dire where hospitals are that overwhelmed. perhaps NY has been rough but i doubt many residents have been taking care of those covid patients, nor do i think that its so unfeasible for progams to give their residents the pto they are entitled to now that things are improving, less people are getting hospitalized, and the crisis is weaning. if anything i'm certain the hospital/program could be sued.
again, it's another way where physicians are treated like garbage. if it's in the contract - it must follow contractual obligations
The word "legal" and "illegal" have been mentioned multiple times. Let's be clear -- illegal = there's a law against doing it. Nothing the ACGME says has any legal standing. If your contract states you get 3 weeks of vacation and you don't, that's a contract dispute. It gets adjudicated in court (maybe), but it's not "illegal". It's possible that some states may have laws that impact this issue, but no blanket statement can be made.
I have also reviewed the ACGME docs, and there's nothing about a minimum number of weeks of vacation. Perhaps it was there in the past. "Minimum good" things in these types of documents are often removed because poorly administered programs tend to use them as a de facto maximum. If the ACGME reqs state that programs must provide a min of 2 weeks of vac, some DIO is going to make all programs only give 2 weeks, since "that's what it says".
You think that residents in NYC have not been taking care of COVID patients? I have many colleagues there, and I guarantee you that many have mobilized all of the residents (including derm, ortho, etc) to care for anyone. Even if all the COVID patients are cared by staff alone, all the non-COVID patients need to be care for by someone.
I do agree that as things improve, perhaps any PTO holds could be lifted. But NYC is still very, very busy. Most hospitals are at least 50% over their normal capacity. The "good" news is that it appears to have leveled off, but we're no where near normal. They still need all hands on deck to deal with their patient load.
Once PTO gets restarted, we then have the problem of whom gets to use it. Not everyone can be away at the same time, and we're nearing the end of the year.
As much as I respect aPD, he is not entirely correct on that. Per ACGME, every program must give a minimum of at least 2 weeks of time off per year.
I'dhave to look to find but it is an ACGME req. to have no less than 2 weeks vacatin. Do u actually have a doubt?Do u suppose that any resident could work 52 weeks/academic year w no vacation?
Please take a look and see if I've missed it.
Hospital staffing problems are not the resident’s crisis, that’s a ceo problem and they need to look elsewhere
The other thing to note is, some residents may have used all of their 20 PTO days for the year before this blanket decision was made, while some may have used almost zero.
So not all residents would receive the same number of PTO for the year although the resident contracts universally give 20 PTO days that are signed and executed for the year.
A resident contract will likely state how many vacation days you will get. It will also likely state that you have reviewed and agree to GME and hospital policies. If there is then a hospital policy that says when the CEO declares an emergency situation, that all PTO is canceled, then that too is part of your contract. If that's the case, this isn't a contract violation either.
I agree that staffing problems are the CEO / CMO / c-suite's problem. Residents are employees of the hospital (usually). Hence, the CEO may feel that they are just as reasonable to tap as anyone else. I would hope that a good leadership team would tap broadly, not make the residents do most of the work.
In the end, some residents may get more PTO than others. That's what may happen in a crisis. We have backup call -- although the call is spread relatively evenly, some people get called in more (by luck), and some people get more backup call (also by luck, because it doesn't divide equally). Again, if the hospital has a disaster policy, that gets incorporated into the contract.
