Completely sleep-deprived?

[cleverwebb]

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Does anyone else spend most of their time in this meta-zombie state?

I'm in m-3, I'm almost done with my OBGYN rotation, and i'm DRAINED. I get up at 6, go to work at 7, and what with lectures/patients/talks, i HARDLY have time to eat, or, MUCH more importantly, study anything. it's exhausting. I get back home at 6 with absolutely no desire to do anything other than go to bed--apparently, less than 12 hours is no longer enough for me....which is impractical. So i study, sleep for 6 hours, and waking up thinking "oh, when will death come?!"

It's highly unpleasant.

Maybe I've irreversibly messed up all my circadian whateverness over the past 6-7 years; traditionally, i function much better at night, and I completely went with said tradition all through college. I spent my entire second year of medical school in quasi-vampire mode, sleeping from 6 pm to midnight every day, studying until 7 am, going to class, and, well...lather, rinse, repeat. Not working so well right now.

Does ANYONE get what I mean?! Jesus. So much work! What am I gonna do when I start surgery/IM?! And power naps leave me groggy and stir up all those MDD ideations they warn you about.

😴

 

[calvinNhobbes]

Just wait until surgery when you're up by 4am to get there by 5am to round before the first OR case at 7am. Then you stand and assist for the next 12 hours before going home at 7pm. Ah good times....

 

[nope80]

It's horrible. I'm totally with you. I had OB last month - you have a great schedule, I had to BE there by 5:45 am every morning. It was awful, not to mention the tense stressful environment.

I definitely feel drained. If we had less hours, I feel like I'd actually get more out of the rotation since I'd have more time/energy to read.

 

[calvinNhobbes]

The trick I learned as an M3 is never read outside the hospital. Why? Because you should be doing all your reading INSIDE the hospital. There is so much down time, when you are waiting for labs, room turnover, the lecturer/attending/resident to show up, etc. etc. Get yourself some pocket books like Case Files and Pre Test. You can rip through some cases or questions while you got 5-30 mins. You'll be amazed how much you can get done.

 

[tacrum43]

When you have a rotation during third year you don't like, just keep in mind that it doesn't last forever. It will be over in a few weeks, or sooner.

And if you're really have MDD symptoms, be sure to see somebody about it. They will give you a few hours off here and there to go to doctors appointments for yourself, etc. Talk to the clerkship director about it if there's a problem.

 

[Slide]

The trick I learned as an M3 is never read outside the hospital. Why? Because you should be doing all your reading INSIDE the hospital. There is so much down time, when you are waiting for labs, room turnover, the lecturer/attending/resident to show up, etc. etc. Get yourself some pocket books like Case Files and Pre Test. You can rip through some cases or questions while you got 5-30 mins. You'll be amazed how much you can get done.

Easier said than done. Not all services are created equal when it comes to this. Plus, during your downtime, the nurses, techs, other med students, etc. will want to talk to you, so reading may not be a given (and brushing them off in order to read isn't always a good thing, the acquaintances and friendships you develop during these times will save your butt when you least expect it). I do agree that it's best to get reading done in the hospital, but on some services like surgery, it's sometimes not feasible. What's worked for me is reading when I have downtime waiting when I order food, or setting aside 30 min a day to read, whether in the hospital or at home.

 

[RisingSun]

Just wait until surgery when you're up by 4am to get there by 5am to round before the first OR case at 7am. Then you stand and assist for the next 12 hours before going home at 7pm. Ah good times....

Let the good times roll indeed!

How about get to hospital to preround on all of your ICU patients at 4 AM for 5:30 rounds, then off to the OR not knowing what cases you will be in until right before the case, then being mercilessly pimped on that case's anatomy and every little factoid about the patient by the attending non-stop through all of the day's cases until 7 PM.

I have no motivation to study anything when I get home. The only thing that keeps me going throughout the day is the half hour to hour that I spend with my kids and wife before my kids get off to sleep and I have to start studying again (unless on SDN blowing off steam).

 

[deleted6669]

Just wait until surgery when you're up by 4am to get there by 5am to round before the first OR case at 7am. Then you stand and assist for the next 12 hours before going home at 7pm. Ah good times....

GOING HOME?
my surgical rotation was alternating 24 and 12 hr shifts on the trauma service of the busiest trauma ctr in washington d.c. in the middle of summer.....over 600 hrs in the dept in 5 weeks...I had 1 complete day away from the hospital in the entire rotation.....and this was my first rotation....

 

[Rendar5]

go to sleep at 10pm,not midnight. Take melatonin if you need to fall asleep earlier or talk to your doctor. You'll be better off being rested than being studied up.

 

[calvinNhobbes]

Easier said than done. Not all services are created equal when it comes to this. Plus, during your downtime, the nurses, techs, other med students, etc. will want to talk to you, so reading may not be a given (and brushing them off in order to read isn't always a good thing, the acquaintances and friendships you develop during these times will save your butt when you least expect it). I do agree that it's best to get reading done in the hospital, but on some services like surgery, it's sometimes not feasible. What's worked for me is reading when I have downtime waiting when I order food, or setting aside 30 min a day to read, whether in the hospital or at home.

I did it on all the services and honored 70%+ and high passed the rest, so it worked for me, especially on surgery.

Although apparently I don't like to gossip as much as you, so that gave me the extra time. Your advice is good for residency, but as a med student, not really. Just don't be rude, no need to be a kiss ass.

And you talk about ordering food? What service did you eat lunch on that you were worried about time. I don't think I ever ate more than what I stuffed in my pockets on surgery or OB/GYN

 

[calvinNhobbes]

GOING HOME?
my surgical rotation was alternating 24 and 12 hr shifts on the trauma service of the busiest trauma ctr in washington d.c. in the middle of summer.....over 600 hrs in the dept in 5 weeks...I had 1 complete day away from the hospital in the entire rotation.....and this was my first rotation....

Well, that was a non-call day of course, but ouch, 600 hours! Ya, for my trauma month I ended up with two days off total because you had to do 2 weekend calls. Luckily, the weeks you didn't have weekend call you just had to do one call night during the week, but don't expect to be going home at noon. But, honestly, it was one of my favorite months. Felt like I actually got to do stuff.

 

[cleverwebb]

The trick I learned as an M3 is never read outside the hospital. Why? Because you should be doing all your reading INSIDE the hospital. There is so much down time, when you are waiting for labs, room turnover, the lecturer/attending/resident to show up, etc. etc. Get yourself some pocket books like Case Files and Pre Test. You can rip through some cases or questions while you got 5-30 mins. You'll be amazed how much you can get done.

Yes, well, i TRY, but it hasn't been working out as well as I'd hoped! Every time I open up blueprints or one of my pocket notebook things, something HAS to happen, and i have to stop...a resident might decide to give us a "talk" on IUGR, the attending might decide to stop by for whatever reason and then just ramble on about infertility, or it'd be my turn to go down to the OR and spend the next 3 hours looking over shoulders, pathetically TRYING to watch a TAHBSO.

Not that all that isn't useful, it IS, but it always implies more note-taking and therefore even MORE stuff to go over later that day/at some point. Plus, i thought that the delivery suite would give me time to work--zero joy. Women NEVER stop giving birth, apparently, and come midnight, when the residents have mercy on you and tell you to go down to the on-call room and get some sleep...well, that's all you CAN do after RUNNING from room to operating room all day. the ONE time i managed to get some proper work done in the delivery suite was when they woke me up at like 2 am cuz *i* was responsible for delivery that baby...so i crawled back down to the on-call room, studied my NVDs, delivered a kid, and spent the rest of the next day with this odd mix of elation and morbid exhaustion!

i doubt i'll ever be able to get a guilt-free, good night's sleep these coming two years (or, like, ever), mostly because much of my skill as a med student comes from this really chaotic place. doing the "ok, it's 5 pm, i'm done, let's study for the next 6 hours, with 5 minute breaks every 50 minutes" would BORE me to death.

 

[Slide]

I did it on all the services and honored 70%+ and high passed the rest, so it worked for me, especially on surgery.

Although apparently I don't like to gossip as much as you, so that gave me the extra time. Your advice is good for residency, but as a med student, not really. Just don't be rude, no need to be a kiss ass.

Yeah I didn't realize going over the patient list, discussing treatment plans, cases and events happening in the future, learning and figuring out where stuff is in the OR/hospital/clinics, or even introducing yourself politely to the staff was considered gossip. Apparently it must not be working either for my previous services because I only made 90%+, not 99%, on my shelf exams, and received just honors grades so far, so that "gossip" definitely isn't working.

And you talk about ordering food? What service did you eat lunch on that you were worried about time. I don't think I ever ate more than what I stuffed in my pockets on surgery or OB/GYN

On surgery if I'm lucky enough to get a lunch break I'm more concerned with getting back fast enough to either start on the next case or take the next trauma that comes into the ER. When I get home, I'm too tired to cook or make my own food, so I'll go out somewhere on the way home and buy dinner before I crash and start the next day. While I'm waiting I'll read whatever book I have on hand. I'm pretty sure that would be considered acceptable by most standards, even yours. No need to be so defensive, all I'm saying is that ideally reading only in the hospital sounds like a great idea, but it's not always practical in some services that tend to be very busy, which vary from school to school. It's easy to preach from the pedestal and dispense advice, but it's not always gonna be workable with every student in any service.

 

[Slide]

Yes, well, i TRY, but it hasn't been working out as well as I'd hoped! Every time I open up blueprints or one of my pocket notebook things, something HAS to happen, and i have to stop...a resident might decide to give us a "talk" on IUGR, the attending might decide to stop by for whatever reason and then just ramble on about infertility, or it'd be my turn to go down to the OR and spend the next 3 hours looking over shoulders, pathetically TRYING to watch a TAHBSO.

Not that all that isn't useful, it IS, but it always implies more note-taking and therefore even MORE stuff to go over later that day/at some point. Plus, i thought that the delivery suite would give me time to work--zero joy. Women NEVER stop giving birth, apparently, and come midnight, when the residents have mercy on you and tell you to go down to the on-call room and get some sleep...well, that's all you CAN do after RUNNING from room to operating room all day. the ONE time i managed to get some proper work done in the delivery suite was when they woke me up at like 2 am cuz *i* was responsible for delivery that baby...so i crawled back down to the on-call room, studied my NVDs, delivered a kid, and spent the rest of the next day with this odd mix of elation and morbid exhaustion!

i doubt i'll ever be able to get a guilt-free, good night's sleep these coming two years (or, like, ever), mostly because much of my skill as a med student comes from this really chaotic place. doing the "ok, it's 5 pm, i'm done, let's study for the next 6 hours, with 5 minute breaks every 50 minutes" would BORE me to death.

Yeah some of my classmates have the same problem. What they've was to keep a list of things you saw that day and look them up in your textbooks or review books. If you have a pocket book available you may be able to glance at your topic of interest after it being discussed briefly to get an idea about it. In the end though, you'll ultimately have to set some time out of your day to try to get some reading done, even if you're tired. It sucks, but sometimes it just has to get done.

 

[smiley737]

Yeah, I'm just finishing Ob-Gyn and it wasn't the most fun. It's a combination of being constantly sleep-deprived, constantly pimped w/o knowing the right answer, and knowing that ultimately I'm probably more deadweight to the team than anything else.

I guess they might find it nice that med students can write mag notes every 2 hours for the pre-eclamptic patients, but other than that I don't feel like I'm really any help for being there long hours and would probably learn better just having dedicated time to study.

Any med students really feel like they're a vital part of the team?

 

[cleverwebb]

Yeah some of my classmates have the same problem. What they've was to keep a list of things you saw that day and look them up in your textbooks or review books. If you have a pocket book available you may be able to glance at your topic of interest after it being discussed briefly to get an idea about it. In the end though, you'll ultimately have to set some time out of your day to try to get some reading done, even if you're tired. It sucks, but sometimes it just has to get done.

And it does, at the expense of proper sleep! I'm an honor student, pretty much, so, even if I'm tired beyond the telling of it, the OCPD kicks in and drags me to my desk. I keep trying to take 2-3 hour afternoon naps then go back to bed at, say, 2 am, but those mostly end up with me frantically waking up the next MORNING. Which is morbidly, totally counterproductive. So I just do my "leisure" stuff (facebook/the office/the sandman, if i can) (but heavens forfend I find the time to see my non-medical friends for once), until like 9 pm, and spend the next 6 hours studying (which has traditionally been my peak time). I wake up wanting to fling myself off the balcony the next day, and so forth! Like today, I've been up, working on a "breast cancer in pregnancy" presentation for an unhealthy set of hours.

And you talk about ordering food? What service did you eat lunch on that you were worried about time. I don't think I ever ate more than what I stuffed in my pockets on surgery or OB/GYN

My lunches involve a chocolate protein bar and a red bull. Maybe a bag of chips too, sometimes, but I rarely have time to get to it.

Yeah, I'm just finishing Ob-Gyn and it wasn't the most fun. It's a combination of being constantly sleep-deprived, constantly pimped w/o knowing the right answer, and knowing that ultimately I'm probably more deadweight to the team than anything else.

I guess they might find it nice that med students can write mag notes every 2 hours for the pre-eclamptic patients, but other than that I don't feel like I'm really any help for being there long hours and would probably learn better just having dedicated time to study.

Any med students really feel like they're a vital part of the team?

I felt the EXACT same way at first. Writing down an assessment/plan for a post-NVD patient struck me as rather absurd because my opinion REALLY doesn’t matter. I mean, clearly, I should encourage pain management. But even if I decided to jot down “d/c pain rx" or "do not encourage breast-feeding." it SERIOUSLY won’t matter cuz I’m less significant than an AMOEBA in the grander scheme of things. But that was when I was on the OB service, and only when I was taking care of post-NVDs/CS. Dealing with an actively pregnant woman was different because, though most of what we did was still pretty much routine and laid out for us, it wasn’t AS mechanical as asking about gas/urine/ambulation. Plus, have you tried disagreeing with the residents on their plans of management? Not in a condescending way, obviously, but…well, for example, I saw a patient who was on lamotrigine (which is not an antifolate) for seizure prophylaxis. They decided to give her the 4 mg dose of folate, when I saw absolutely no reason to. So we had a nice little discussion about how pretty much everyone with a seizure disorder takes the higher dose of folic acid, whether or not their treatment interferes with that. Delivery suite was different cuz of the NST—sure, most of the time you’re wrong, and it actually IS a variable and not a late decel, but discussing the FH tracing with the residents will really help you learn; plus, it made me feel more useful than not. You get?

Same motions in GYN; I kept feeling like I was in the way at first. Plus, pretty dismal confidence when it came to interviews, the first couple of days (gyn was my first REAL medical experience, but history-taking didn't turn out to be as daunting as i thought it would, ESPECIALLY cuz they give us this form to follow and...extrapolate upon). But that’s gone now, which is of the good.

 

[ObamaCare]

you're on OB, you come in at 7 and leave at 6 -- those are great hours! your institution is going light on you.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

you're on OB, you come in at 7 and leave at 6 -- those are great hours! your institution is going light on you.

For serious. We were usually done with rounds by 7 on OB.

 

[sprinkibrio]

For what it's worth IM is a joke compared to OB and surgery, so take heart. IM I would get there at 5 and leave at 1-2, plus get off one day a week. I'm at a school especially known for it's ridiculous OB program so I get there 5 and leave at 5-7 and get off one day in three weeks. I spend all my time outside of the hospital studying, eating, or driving so that I can sleep at least 6 hrs/night. It sucks. Oh yeah, and we're not supposed to sit for 13 hrs q4 days when we have high risk L&D.

 

[reedman]

I used to work 12 hour night shifts at a hospital. I know its nothing like rotations, but here are some things that really helped me cope.

Caffeine- it really will give you an edge. start your shift with a cup of coffee, then drink a quarter cup whenever you feel super tired. Stop drinking coffee 5 hours before you have to sleep. Oh and don't over do it on the caffeine because you will end up more tired later.

Food- avoid large meals. eat a little every hour or two. I used to break into the stash of grahm crackers we had for patients.

Exercise- I know it's hard to get up 30 min earlier than you have to , but a little cardio will do wonders for your energy.

sleep- Sometimes its hard to fall asleep when your rhythm is a screwed up. I'm sure many people will disagree with this method, but it worked for me. 1 benadryl+1 beer + a little food= sleep. I never woke up feeling groggier than usual, but this might not work for you.

 

[ENThopeful]

yea 1-2 bottles of beer is my secret to energy throughout the day. you are forced to sleep at obscure times (8pm) and being buzzed helps knock you out

 

[calvinNhobbes]

Yeah I didn't realize going over the patient list, discussing treatment plans, cases and events happening in the future, learning and figuring out where stuff is in the OR/hospital/clinics, or even introducing yourself politely to the staff was considered gossip.

You said chatting with the staff during "downtime". I wouldn't consider that stuff "downtime". Plus 99% of the crap you listed should be figured out on the first day of the rotation (like where things are and introducing yourself), or discussed before morning rounds.

Some people are more efficient, if people want to have a life outside the hospital, better figure it out now.

 

[werd]

the long hours of 3rd year are preparation for internship, which is almost invariably more rigorous. remember that the final year of med school is right around the corner, and it's usually the easiest year 🙂. personally i hated quite a few 3rd year rotations, i just can't function well before 9am.

 

[Yakko]

Man, I thought I was becoming an alcoholic when I started occasionally having a beer before bed to fall asleep better. Thanks for keeping me in good company!

 

[reedman]

Man, I thought I was becoming an alcoholic when I started occasionally having a beer before bed to fall asleep better. Thanks for keeping me in good company!

haha yeah one beer before bed certainly does not make an alcoholic. Its when you start having to have a beer as soon as you get out of bed when you know you have a problem!!!

 

[Tiger26]

Does anyone else spend most of their time in this meta-zombie state?

I'm in m-3, I'm almost done with my OBGYN rotation, and i'm DRAINED. I get up at 6, go to work at 7, and what with lectures/patients/talks, i HARDLY have time to eat, or, MUCH more importantly, study anything. it's exhausting. I get back home at 6 with absolutely no desire to do anything other than go to bed--apparently, less than 12 hours is no longer enough for me....which is impractical. So i study, sleep for 6 hours, and waking up thinking "oh, when will death come?!"

It's highly unpleasant.

Maybe I've irreversibly messed up all my circadian whateverness over the past 6-7 years; traditionally, i function much better at night, and I completely went with said tradition all through college. I spent my entire second year of medical school in quasi-vampire mode, sleeping from 6 pm to midnight every day, studying until 7 am, going to class, and, well...lather, rinse, repeat. Not working so well right now.

Does ANYONE get what I mean?! Jesus. So much work! What am I gonna do when I start surgery/IM?! And power naps leave me groggy and stir up all those MDD ideations they warn you about.

😴

Not to be a meanie, but having to get into work by 7 am really precludes the possibility of being "completely sleep deprived" . . . .

 

[Pinner Doc]

Not to be a meanie, but having to get into work by 7 am really precludes the possibility of being "completely sleep deprived" . . . .

i have to agree. eleven hour work days are not exactly a rarity, even outside of medicine. even if you only sleep seven hours (which is plenty for many), what are you doing with the other six hours of your day?

maybe it's the rotation you're on. sounds like you may be depressed?

 

[45408]

GOING HOME?
my surgical rotation was alternating 24 and 12 hr shifts on the trauma service of the busiest trauma ctr in washington d.c. in the middle of summer.....over 600 hrs in the dept in 5 weeks...I had 1 complete day away from the hospital in the entire rotation.....and this was my first rotation....

Which of course is not legal any more...

 

[calvinNhobbes]

Which of course is not legal any more...

When has that ever really mattered for med students? My surgical rotation on one page listed we were supposed to follow the same work hour restrictions as the residents, and then on the next page explained the call schedule, which blatantly violated them (<10 hours between shifts).

Not to mention, it's pretty much expected and required to work 100+ hour weeks as a med student to even have a chance at matching in the competitive surgical subspecialties.

For med students, it's all about keeping up with the Jones's.

 

[J ROD]

Curious, do you suck it up for rotations like Surg, OB/Gyn and then recover with rotations like Psy, FM?

That was sort of my thinking....am I wrong. Is the whole year hell?

 

[QofQuimica]

Does anyone else spend most of their time in this meta-zombie state?

I'm in m-3, I'm almost done with my OBGYN rotation, and i'm DRAINED. I get up at 6, go to work at 7, and what with lectures/patients/talks, i HARDLY have time to eat, or, MUCH more importantly, study anything. it's exhausting. I get back home at 6 with absolutely no desire to do anything other than go to bed--apparently, less than 12 hours is no longer enough for me....which is impractical. So i study, sleep for 6 hours, and waking up thinking "oh, when will death come?!"

It's highly unpleasant.

Maybe I've irreversibly messed up all my circadian whateverness over the past 6-7 years; traditionally, i function much better at night, and I completely went with said tradition all through college. I spent my entire second year of medical school in quasi-vampire mode, sleeping from 6 pm to midnight every day, studying until 7 am, going to class, and, well...lather, rinse, repeat. Not working so well right now.

Does ANYONE get what I mean?! Jesus. So much work! What am I gonna do when I start surgery/IM?! And power naps leave me groggy and stir up all those MDD ideations they warn you about.

😴

OB/gyn is considered the worst rotation by many people for a good reason. I am an OCD person myself, but I decided before my OB/gyn rotation even started that my goal was just to pass. So I didn't go out of my way to try to shine, and when I needed some time off here and there to study or rest, I took it. It made the rotation much more tolerable, although I still detested it, and I had plenty of time to sleep even on my OB night float. Ironically, my evaluations and final grade in OB/gyn wound up being much better than just a pass. As for when to fit in the naps, dozing off while retracting in the OR worked great for me. 😛

Just get through it, and then put it behind you. If OB/gyn isn't something you want to do for life, you really can let go a little. (If OB/gyn *is* something you want to do, then you are arguably insane, and there is nothing I can say to help you.)

Curious, do you suck it up for rotations like Surg, OB/Gyn and then recover with rotations like Psy, FM?

That was sort of my thinking....am I wrong. Is the whole year hell?

It's highly hospital and team dependent. One of my psych attendings was a real ball buster, and my main surgery attending was fabulous.

 

[markglt]

op, you just described me to a tee...i live with the moon....
there's nothing worse than seeing that sun come up...it never gets less painful.
what got me through surgery, and to a lesser degree obgyn is that i just didn't fight the tiredness, i excepted it as my mind set and it seems that made it easier, cause i wasn't harping on how f*$king tired i was.... the saturdays and sundays i was off, i slept and slept and slept.

 

[Depakote]

On my worst month of surgery when I was getting up at 3:45 for normal days, I pushed my sleep schedule ahead. Crashed and in bed by 9:30 or earlier and I could get a solid 6-7 hours in. Lots of caffeine in the AM to jumpstart and cutting it out early afternoon (to allow the early bedtime) helped.

It wasn't fun and I had to be efficient with my studying during the daytime hours, but getting real sleep on non-call nights made a huge difference.

 

[45408]

Not to mention, it's pretty much expected and required to work 100+ hour weeks as a med student to even have a chance at matching in the competitive surgical subspecialties.

Unless you're submitting your time card with your application, how the hell would they know who worked 80 hours and who worked 100 hours? And where are you getting your information? I don't know anyone who's done what you're talking about, and I do know people in competitive surgical specialties.

 

[calvinNhobbes]

Unless you're submitting your time card with your application, how the hell would they know who worked 80 hours and who worked 100 hours? And where are you getting your information? I don't know anyone who's done what you're talking about, and I do know people in competitive surgical specialties.

Sorry, realize that was ambigious, I meant during you rotation month on the specialty service and during away rotations, not on every M3 rotation.

I averaged about 110 per week and that was with Q3-4 call. One student was doing Q2-3 call. I think my longest shift was ~38 hours and I had 2 days off that month. Best month of med school by far! But damn I was tired.

The advice I was given was be there before the residents and leave after them (ie. >80 hrs), never ask to leave, never ask for a day off (ie. >>> 80 hrs).

 

[EM2BE]

If you are as tired as your fellow students, then I wouldn't be worried. If you are more tired and seem to be more fatigued, it would be worth seeing a physician for. You never know if you are developing a medical issue unless you have an objective person to evaluate you for it. Let's hope there isn't an issue, but if there is, better to be found than ignored (which we are really good at doing to ourselves).

 

[Baditude]

GOING HOME?
my surgical rotation was alternating 24 and 12 hr shifts on the trauma service of the busiest trauma ctr in washington d.c. in the middle of summer.....over 600 hrs in the dept in 5 weeks...I had 1 complete day away from the hospital in the entire rotation.....and this was my first rotation....

We are on the same schedule here. We are on one surgery service during the day (12 hour shifts) then we cover gen surg and trauma surg call at night at a level one trauma center in Chicago. We have one full 24 hours off a week and we have to make rounds on the weekends. We also split 24 hours call on the weekends so there are always at least 2 students on call every night and weekend. I can not imagine getting to stay home in bed until 6am every morning. I am on the wards by 5am or earlier depending on my patient load.

 

[rahulb]

i just started surgery and its pretty horrible. i'm down to about 5-6 hrs of sleep and this is my only weekend off for a while.

im enjoying it quite a bit though 😍

 

[indo]

Not to mention, it's pretty much expected and required to work 100+ hour weeks as a med student to even have a chance at matching in the competitive surgical subspecialties.

100+ hours per week as a student means 3 things; 1) you're on an extremely busy service 2) there aren't enough students to share call with 3) you're probably not learning very much except how to keep the patient list updated exactly how [insert resident here] likes it. Meanwhile, students on the other surgery services get done at 4 or 5 every day and have time to do all 600 surgery questions on USMLEWorld, read through pastana's notes twice, and step-up to surgery twice.

I'm not sure how the number of hours worked relates to matching.

 

[Re3iRtH]

What Uworld version do you have that has 600
Surgery questions?