Hey everyone. I am an intern in a self-proclaimed good surgery program in the southeast. However, I now realized that I might have done a stupid and bad decision signing here. I was told by one of the chiefs that during my first year I will rarely go to the OR (they were telling 10 times mx) and during my second year i will be pretty much holding retractors for the chiefs and fellows. Also, if there aren't enough 2nd years that go into research, some of us will pretty much be forced to take at least one year off doing research. I wanted to ask everyone if this is standard in all programs... are there any programs were you are in the OR during your PGY 1-5, meaning less floor time, more OR time?
There is no one standard that fits all programs.
Some are "top heavy" with fellows and complicated cases, so the interns don't do much in the OR and others have lots of smaller cases, with plenty of OR time for the junior residents.
As noted above, many fine programs have their interns and junior residents focus on peri-operative management with the bulk of the operating coming after 3rd year. If you find yourself in one of these programs (which is "traditional" BTW), you simply need to make sure that you will graduate with enough cases to be BE and to realistically assess your level of competence at the end of your residency.
"Floor time", while not as fun in most cases, is an important part of surgical training. Obviously most of us like to operate and programs, IMHO, make a mistake by not throwing the junior residents a bone and allowing them to operate more. Its what keeps you going during those bad days.
That being said, "10 cases" a year is pretty freakin' low even for the most top heavy, traditional program; I would either assume the Chief was exaggerating or that program is in trouble without enough cases to go around. I have an acquaintance who claims to be in such a program; I worry that he will not have enough to finish and be BE.
Unfortunately, in programs without required lab time, sometimes so shuffling goes on with regards to lab time. However, I would be suprised if the reason was "not enough 2nd years going into the lab" instead of "too many 3rd years". I have seen this situation happen where there was a disaparity of people going into the lab and those coming out...if you have 6 categorical 3rd year positions and you have 8 people coming out of the lab, it makes it hard to organize rotations, get everyone enough cases, etc. Therefore, the program has to try and coordinate these things and sometimes people are "encouraged" to go into the lab; this may not be the bad thing you think it is, but I agree...you shouldn't HAVE to if you don't want to and aren't in a program which outright requires it. This is not standard in all programs, but again, it is not uncommon.
Ohh, and this institution just bought a private hospital and rumors are that most of the attendings will be moving out of this place because of conflicts with contracts.
Rumors are just that...they may have no basis in reality and even if it were true, some of the attendings may not be able to or choose to leave. However, you joined a program which you presumed to have some stability and its a big blow when your faculty is in upheaval. I'd wait and see what happens before assuming that all heck will break loose.
You're 1 week into internship and probably have no basis for checking the facts as presented to you. Residency is like HS...a lot of immature people who gossip about each other, exaggerate the truth, try and skip out of chores and make you feel bad about yourself for being different. Give it some time before making up your mind that you made a mistake.
