Can residents take vacation?

[dikoerastenie]

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Hey I have this question. Lets say you finish med school and do an anesthesiology residency. Supposedly they have 3 or 4 weeks off per year? Does it mean you can have a vacation just like any other adult? Does it depend on specialty like some specialties can and some cannot take several weeks off each year? Also if you get into residency in 4th year of med school can you defer it for a year to have a 1-yr vacation first? And how much cash can you make in residency moonlighting?

 

[Geekchick921]

Anecdotally, I have a friend that is a first year resident who went to Jamaica with his wife (also a friend) last month, so... yes!

 

[Catalystik]

I've noticed that some residencies only give you a two-week vacation. Whether it's 2, 3, or 4 weeks, you can take a normal vacation, leaving the country without your beeper, if you wish.

If you match into a residency in the fourth year of med school, you can't count on being able to defer starting residency (though I've heard of a residency program offering to hold a spot open when their matchee was obliged to do some last-minute remediation of a clerkship in order to graduate and I'd bet that an IMG failing to get a visa in a timely manner is another acceptable reason). If you want to take a year off first, you would defer your match until the following year. I've seen this done successfully for the purposes of doing research, or for child-bearing. Only the former is likely to enhance your application and make you more desirable as a match applicant.

 

[Ponger]

Hey I have this question. Lets say you finish med school and do an anesthesiology residency. Supposedly they have 3 or 4 weeks off per year? Does it mean you can have a vacation just like any other adult? Does it depend on specialty like some specialties can and some cannot take several weeks off each year? Also if you get into residency in 4th year of med school can you defer it for a year to have a 1-yr vacation first? And how much cash can you make in residency moonlighting?

3/4 weeks seems like too much time off. That's a full rotation right there. It's probably closer to 2 weeks like any other job. Like any other job I'm sure its 'do whatever you want with it' time.

Residency is a real job. Imagine asking anyone who just hired you if you could take a year off for vacation purposes. Pretty sure they'd laugh at you (and lose a little respect for your maturity level).

 

[OtoHNS]

Yes, residents do get to take vacation. It's generally 3 or 4 weeks per year. Mostly, residents pick and choose their vacation days/weeks based on seniority. A lot of surgical residencies have started assigning vacation blocks (i.e. resident gets 4 weeks off in a row) so that none of the services are ever "down a man."
Also, almost every residency has some sort of holiday schedule over Xmas/New Years where people will work one holiday and get a few days off over the other holiday.

 

[mvenus929]

And how much cash can you make in residency moonlighting?

As I understand it, moonlighting is a thing of the past, because it goes against your work-hour restrictions. As it is, you aren't allowed to work more than 80 hours a week (averaged over a 4 week span)--some programs are more inclined to follow this than others.

Starting with the next residency class, there's also a maximum of 16 hour shifts, at least for interns (again, from what I hear). There's talk about expanding the time spent in residency because of these work hour restrictions.

3/4 weeks seems like too much time off. That's a full rotation right there. It's probably closer to 2 weeks like any other job. Like any other job I'm sure its 'do whatever you want with it' time.

I don't know what jobs you've worked in the past, but most jobs give you 3-4 weeks of paid vacation each year. At my hospital job, it was about 6 hours per pay period, which worked out to about 156 hours total, which is just under four weeks (working 40 hour weeks). Military gives you 30 days a year.

 

[gravitywave]

I don't know what jobs you've worked in the past, but most jobs give you 3-4 weeks of paid vacation each year. At my hospital job, it was about 6 hours per pay period, which worked out to about 156 hours total, which is just under four weeks (working 40 hour weeks). Military gives you 30 days a year.

i don't know what jobs YOU'VE worked in the past, but 3-4 weeks is cush in this country. Health care is great for this stuff, but most other industries aren't, at least not until you've been at the same place for a number of years. The people who work for hourly wage in the service industry don't get anything, usually. if you want to take time, you have to plead with your supervisor for the privilege of not making any money.

the average is 15-20 days/yr depending on who you believe, and again - that might just include the people who actually get any.

 

[Stixman28]

i don't know what jobs YOU'VE worked in the past, but 3-4 weeks is cush in this country. Health care is great for this stuff, but most other industries aren't, at least not until you've been at the same place for a number of years. The people who work for hourly wage in the service industry don't get anything, usually. if you want to take time, you have to plead with your supervisor for the privilege of not making any money.

the average is 15-20 days/yr depending on who you believe, and again - that might just include the people who actually get any.

Cant tell if you guys are disagreeing or not. Remember that when you sign a contract at a job, they might give you 21 days off. Bc you already get off weekends, you can take off "4 weeks" with 20 days.

 

[mvenus929]

i don't know what jobs YOU'VE worked in the past, but 3-4 weeks is cush in this country. Health care is great for this stuff, but most other industries aren't, at least not until you've been at the same place for a number of years. The people who work for hourly wage in the service industry don't get anything, usually. if you want to take time, you have to plead with your supervisor for the privilege of not making any money.

the average is 15-20 days/yr depending on who you believe, and again - that might just include the people who actually get any.

Silly me... I thought residents would be lumped in with the health care industry, not the service industry (and thus get those 3-4 weeks). But you're right... I've been sheltered. For the past 10 years or so, I've only had experience with the military and health care system.

 

[gravitywave]

Silly me... I thought residents would be lumped in with the health care industry, not the service industry (and thus get those 3-4 weeks). But you're right... I've been sheltered. For the past 10 years or so, I've only had experience with the military and health care system.

when you said

I don't know what jobs you've worked in the past, but most jobs give you 3-4 weeks of paid vacation each year.

i took that to mean 'most jobs' as in, 'most of the jobs in America.' Hence, I barked. The 3-4 weeks of vacation being standard for residents, and for much of healthcare, is certainly true - although people such as techs/CNAs are more towards the bottom of the heap, and their compensation packages start to look more and more like those of the clerk at the 7-11 the further down you go.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Wow...this is a surprising thread.

Yes residents do get vacation. All programs give vacation, but the time varies - and it's very program specific. Most places give 3 weeks of vacation, and a great many give an additional week of time over the holidays, depending on the field, coverage required, etc.

Most places will place restrictions on when you can take vacation as well. There will be certain rotations that are "mission critical" and have to be staffed. As a pediatrics resident, for me, this includes any wards month, NICU, PICU and ER months. My vacations are limited to being taken in months where I'm in outpatient clinics or electives, where they can afford to not have resident staffing. Because I get my schedule of rotations a year at a time (ie in May 2010, I knew what rotation I was going to be on in June 2011 at the end of my 2nd year), I had to request that certain months be reserved for vacation worthy electives. And at least in my program, I'm not allowed to take more than one week of vacation in a block. If I wanted a two week holiday, it would have to be two vacation eligible months back to back connecting the last week of month 1 with the first week of month 2.

The other key point in most programs is that you can't separate out vacation days. You take a week off en bloc. No snagging a vacation day for a long weekend here or there.

Some programs will be more rigid, some more flexible. Some less generous, others more. It's certainly one thing to consider when you begin looking at residency programs during match.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

Every time that I've visited the residency information pages on a hospital's website, the vacation time is always 4 weeks. That seems to be the standard time alloted for a resident's vacation. Go take a look at the pages yourself for the residency(s) that you're interested in.

What I want to know is if all 4 weeks can be taken at one time. I've never been able to do that at my jobs. It's rather annoying too. Only the most senior people seem to be able to do that.