Gap year between residency and a job?

[MedicineMan99]

People love to talk about gap years between college and med school, med school and residency, residency and fellowship. But no one ever talks about taking a year off after residency before you get a real job.

What do you think?

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[mvenus929]

Most people do some sort of work or research in their 'gap' years for education--they generally don't just take the year off for funsies, and in many cases, it's to improve their application to the next step (or in the case of a gap between residency and fellowship, they just didn't know early enough to apply to that fellowship on a regular cycle). So I'm not sure I'd understand the purpose of putting off a position after you finish your training. Maybe if the person had a family member that was dying or some other extraordinary circumstance.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

Why?

 

[MedicineMan99]

Why? To have fun until you have to work for the rest of your life. I think you've deserved it by the time you finish residency.

Loans? That's another question.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

I just don't see the point if you've worked hard for all those years to not do what you set out to do and you can finally make enough money to "have fun." I can understand maybe a month long vacation but a whole year to not make a salary to live the life you set for yourself doesn't make much sense to me. My biggest fear in life is that I will get hit by a bus before I complete my training. Since I'm in my final year of residency, that would really suck!

 

[ThoracicGuy]

People love to talk about gap years between college and med school, med school and residency, residency and fellowship. But no one ever talks about taking a year off after residency before you get a real job.

What do you think?

I had a gap year between finishing fellowship and my job. Part of that was my initial job search was tied to a geographic area. Part of it was a paucity of jobs that met my criteria. I now have a job that I like, but after being away from the OR for a while, it was rusty getting back into it.

I would not recommend someone taking a year on purpose between residency and an attending job.

 

[Raryn]

Many (most?) graduates (at least in IM) take a month or three for boards studying, moving, and a bit of a break. Very uncommon to take more than that.

 

[galactus]

There are some people who just can't afford to take off more than a few months before starting a job post-residency. Also, there are boards to take! (Except FM where most everyone now takes it the April of their 3rd year)

 

[IM2GI]

The older you get, the more valuable your time is. By the time you finish residency you actually have some real earning power. It feels a little different to sit around, knowing you could go work a moonlighting shift an pull in $1,000.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

@ThoracicGuy alluded to this, but good jobs are not that easy to come by!

I wouldn't delay going to work if there was a promising offer out there.

Additionally I don't think I could support myself for a year with any reasonable lifestyle without dipping into my meager retirement savings.

Get your attending salary and take a nice vacation.

The millennial mindset that seems to think a gap year is a necessary part of life is weird.

 

[reno911]

I'm going to disagree with most here and say that taking some time after training is complete is a very good idea. In fact, it is probably the best time of your professional career until retirement to take a big chunk of time and not worry about it affecting your job. I personally took 6 months to travel. I really should have taken a year.

Funding it is another issue. I didn't have kids or a ton of educational debt, so that helped a lot. I paid for it with savings (I'd been planning this for years) + a sizeable loan, which I knew I'd be able to pay of quickly once I started working (was paid off in about 6 months).

Once you start working, in most fields, you won't have an opportunity to take a long break. This is the only time you will have a chance. Obviously if doing this sort of think will cause you to lose a really great opportunity, then you may reconsider. But I think that in most specialties, there are always going to be opportunities out there, but you'll never get the time back.

 

[MDtoUSMLE]

I agree with most of the above comments, let me summarize my opinion, I vote against a year vacation however 1-3 months off is really needed:

Why a year long is not good:
1- you will lose lot of your clinical skills and likely medical knowledge too.
2- year long off means on average about 180k less money to your pocket.
3- year off means to some recruiters " a doc in trouble".
4- good jobs are served on first come first hire basis, you definitely don't want to end working in the middle of no where or locum jobs.

Why short vacation is good.
1- most board exams are not easy as some might think, even smart docs fail, you need to prepare well.
2- searching for a job that will shape your future deserve a small pause and deep research before signing your neck to somebody.
3- you definitely deserve a trip or vacation to relax after all these years of stress, this might be the only opportunity you will have in the coming few busy years. You will be facing many things together like moving, adapting, buying a house, kids...

 

[dmal]

I had a gap year between finishing fellowship and my job. Part of that was my initial job search was tied to a geographic area. Part of it was a paucity of jobs that met my criteria. I now have a job that I like, but after being away from the OR for a while, it was rusty getting back into it.

I would not recommend someone taking a year on purpose between residency and an attending job.

What did you do during that gap year? I'm having to take a gap year after residency? Wasn't it difficult finding a job in surgery, especially not being in the OR for a year?

 

[ThoracicGuy]

What did you do during that gap year? I'm having to take a gap year after residency? Wasn't it difficult finding a job in surgery, especially not being in the OR for a year?

I did insurance assessments for a time. The pay was nice, but the work was... mindnumbing. I was looking for a job doing just general thoracic. Most every job I found was cardiac/thoracic mix or cardiac only. And yeah, I was rusty getting back to the OR. It took a good couple of months to get back on my feet. Luckily I had a partner who helped me out to get there.

 

[hallowmann]

I know a few people that took off 3-6 mos out of residency/fellowship before starting. I don't know many people that purposefully took a full year off. Doesn't seem like a terrible idea to me to take a few months off, but it really depends on your financial situation.

 

[kchan99]

I know of quite a few people who took time of between residency and fellowship. They were internists who worked as hospitalists for a couple years before starting fellowships in order to pay off loans.

 

[QofQuimica]

I know of quite a few people who took time of between residency and fellowship. They were internists who worked as hospitalists for a couple years before starting fellowships in order to pay off loans.

Basically what I'm doing. (Will have worked for 2.5 years between residency and fellowship.) But getting back to the OP's question, working as a hospitalist is not a good option to take if your goal is avoid doing any real work for a year, or otherwise to "have fun until you have to work for the rest of your life." Just sayin'.

 

[dmal]

I did insurance assessments for a time. The pay was nice, but the work was... mindnumbing. I was looking for a job doing just general thoracic. Most every job I found was cardiac/thoracic mix or cardiac only. And yeah, I was rusty getting back to the OR. It took a good couple of months to get back on my feet. Luckily I had a partner who helped me out to get there.

I'm having to take a year off between residency and fellowship due to some unforeseen family emergencies. I've deferred my start in a fellowship (and at this point not sure if I'll even be able to do the fellowship). Just finished surgery residency, now I feel like I'm scrambling to find something to keep me busy till next year. Looking for locums positions through agencies has been a pretty frustrating/disappointing experience thus far. Ideally, I'd rather take the time off completely, but being surgical I'm concerned about what being away from OR will do for future prospects of getting a job, even locums jobs. I can get into urge nt care easily now, but I'm concerned that a large gap of not being in the OR will make it difficult to get job (locums or permament) over the next several months. Isn't any gap time beyond 3 months more of an issue for those in procedure based specialties?

 

[ThoracicGuy]

I'm having to take a year off between residency and fellowship due to some unforeseen family emergencies. I've deferred my start in a fellowship (and at this point not sure if I'll even be able to do the fellowship). Just finished surgery residency, now I feel like I'm scrambling to find something to keep me busy till next year. Looking for locums positions through agencies has been a pretty frustrating/disappointing experience thus far. Ideally, I'd rather take the time off completely, but being surgical I'm concerned about what being away from OR will do for future prospects of getting a job, even locums jobs. I can get into urge nt care easily now, but I'm concerned that a large gap of not being in the OR will make it difficult to get job (locums or permament) over the next several months. Isn't any gap time beyond 3 months more of an issue for those in procedure based specialties?

You could probably find some reasonable gen surg locums to keep you busy for the year. I'd recommend that over the urgent care.

 

[phospho]

dude, I've seen so many orthos, gen surgeons, FMs...literally every specialty take a year off (or more if they have an SO providing enough income)

disagree with most comments on thread....i love how everyone here is trying to give you a reason justifying telling the system to go F itself and you'd like some time to yourself.

i'm taking a year off after finishing, and watch me even put that on my resume...

i need to justify for wanting a year for myself and for people to F off and stop paging me? I need to justify to take a year off to regain my sanity? i need to apologize for wanting to be normal? what the F is wrong with our ridiculous profession?

i stopped posting here quite a bit ago because i realized i have almost nothing in common with the average dude/dudette here...to each their own... if you can seriously look me in the eye and tell me you were happy in residency and are now happy to get back to working in the zoo (even as an attending), in my world at least, you need a shrink.

 

[phospho]

wow, just got an f'in "trophy" for being a 10+ year member here... that's how bad it is

life is too short, i can't believe how ******ed I am for going into medicine

i hope I can become normal again someday

 

[exsanguination]

wow, just got an f'in "trophy" for being a 10+ year member here... that's how bad it is

life is too short, i can't believe how ******ed I am for going into medicine

i hope I can become normal again someday

Holy moly! You're back.

Yes, residency has been tough for me too.

 

[phospho]

Holy moly! You're back.

Yes, residency has been tough for me too.

DUDE! good to hear from you... been ok...just got off a crazy 30 hr shift... 12 admits... ED overflow... won't let us go on divert... just another day in paradise

hopefully you're also keeping your ahead above water

we're almost there

 

[Psai]

DUDE! good to hear from you... been ok...just got off a crazy 30 hr shift... 12 admits... ED overflow... won't let us go on divert... just another day in paradise

hopefully you're also keeping your ahead above water

we're almost there

Holy **** dude 12 admits? I'm so sorry...

 

[QofQuimica]

dude, I've seen so many orthos, gen surgeons, FMs...literally every specialty take a year off (or more if they have an SO providing enough income)

disagree with most comments on thread....i love how everyone here is trying to give you a reason justifying telling the system to go F itself and you'd like some time to yourself.

i'm taking a year off after finishing, and watch me even put that on my resume...

i need to justify for wanting a year for myself and for people to F off and stop paging me? I need to justify to take a year off to regain my sanity? i need to apologize for wanting to be normal? what the F is wrong with our ridiculous profession?

i stopped posting here quite a bit ago because i realized i have almost nothing in common with the average dude/dudette here...to each their own... if you can seriously look me in the eye and tell me you were happy in residency and are now happy to get back to working in the zoo (even as an attending), in my world at least, you need a shrink.

To be fair, whether to take time off or not is "reasonable" depends on what people's goals are. Just as with residency, if you want to train at a competitive fellowship in a popular city in a competitive subspecialty so that you can hopefully shoehorn yourself into the "best" attending job immediately afterward, then your options for taking breaks are going to be more limited. I can get away with doing my own thing because I am going into a noncompetitive subspecialty in an area of the country that most people don't want to move to unless they're from here, and I am not sure if I will be working FT at all afterward since I'm on the cusp of being able to retire early if I choose. So my goals in pursuing a fellowship are different than someone who wants to fast track into hardcore academia, and it sounds like yours may be as well. If your goal is to drop out of the rat race for a while, I say bully for you, because being a rat sucks. But if this is mainly your end-of-residency burnout talking here, just be thoughtful about how you use your time off, because many future employers may not be very forgiving of a large hole in your resume.

Getting back to this thread (and the larger question of what to do with one's time off), OP apparently wants to not work at all, and IMO, no medical job is really commensurate with that. Any job in medicine will be a lot of work. And there's also no disputing that one's clinical skills, like any other skills, degenerate over time if not used (hence the old saw of why they call it "practicing" medicine). So leaving medicine altogether for a long time (like a year or more) may not be reasonable for many people who later plan to climb back on the train and become employed FT as physicians in the future. Still, it's definitely possible to downshift for a while if one so desires. And doing so may be a completely good decision for those who would otherwise likely be leaving medicine altogether as the alternative.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

In psychiatry, this would probably be a great time to take time off assuming you didn't have pressing financial needs (which most of us do). There are tons of jobs out there for us right now, and taking time off at this point won't raise red flags for training programs, etc.. In my state, you do have to report periods off work for 2 months or more when you renew your license and on credentialing applications, but I suspect taking voluntary time off wouldn't be an issue (assuming they trust your answer). You could also get an on call type of job and work some shifts in between travels if you want to supplement income and avoid having a gap to possibly report.

 

[MediCane2006]

I took 2.5 months....it was great! But it's pretty financially demanding. I lived with my parents and I still had to dip into retirement savings and borrow some money from Mom and Dad.

I guess I could see how someone with a spouse could take a year off, but I gotta say, after about 6 weeks I kind of started jonesing to get back in the hospital (granted I've got that surgeon Type A personality). YMMV.

 

[northernpsy]

A year might be long enough to potentially raise some eyebrows, perhaps, but taking a few months off is normal and encouraged where I did my residency. If you do end up taking a few months, I wouldn't delay the job search. I would simply ask the job to allow for a start date in a few months rather than right after graduation.

I only took a few weeks off before I started my current job, but that was because I needed the money and I have planned all along that this won't be where I spend my entire career, so I'll have another chance when I leave this job. I am definitely going to take a few months off after I leave this job before I start the next one. It will be more fun then since I will have more disposable income from being an attending for a while. I'm going to take an epic trip to Europe or something.