Again, you're not addressing my point.
Yes, each specialty has a breadth of knowledge.
As is evident by the consults I used to get, dermatology is essentially non-existent in medical education unless you're in dermatology. You pretty much start from scratch in residency, which is absolutely not the case for most specialties.
What I was pointing out is that the amount of outside reading required for dermatology does indeed dwarf most mainline specialties. Similar things could be said with regards to, say, pathology and radiology.
I never suggested we had it harder or that I would have preferred to toil away in the OR for 80 hours a week. Just stating that the amount of time spent reading is in excess of what most other people have to do. Nothing I said in my original post was incorrect, but it seems like your feelings got hurt or something.
Clear for you now?
I'm picking up what you're putting down. There's a few other specialties that are similar, in fact. I don't think the breadth of derm's knowledge base is appreciated as much as it should be.
OP -
Intern year, for anyone, is about survival initially. A lot of the reading you do at first is on-the-job just so you can get enough of a handle to put in an order that needs to get in. Then it's reading survival guides, or shoreing up the most obvious holes in your knowledge first. Most programs will have noon conference or journal clubs to push you out to where you ultimately want to be, on the forefront surfing the wave of the ever moving tide that is medicine.
Besides reading on the job to survive, I would write down things through the day I wanted to read about later to know more. I'm a very piecemeal type learner though. I would even read on my phone on the John, because, there's never enough hours in the day and no shortage of opportunities to look stupid.
I would read just enough to try to get my job done and get out without violating work hours, and get sleep. Focus on efficiency. The more efficient you are, the more well rested you are, the better able you will be to do all the other things you need to do, and to learn. Then you will be better able to spend the recommended 30-60 min a day of reading to get really good.
I would sign my last order so I wasn't violating hours, but I was the person that frequently sat at a hospital computer as long as I could stand it, because I would do better work there, once I'm home I can't even be ****ed to do emails. That's when I would do emails, read stuff, work on presentations, etc etc. You need to be careful if you do this that you are not signing anything in the EHR beyond your work hours, and you don't want people to see you doing this if they are going to think it's a work hours violation. If you can take your work home with you, more power to you. There's no shortage of it.
Anyone that thinks a resident is going to be reading 2 hours a day AFTER work in an average 60-80 work week is just plain crazy.
OP- I see that you are an accepted student. Hopefully they will pair you up with a primary care preceptor. Just looking at an average doc's desk is enough to give you a clue to the "homework" a doctor has when they aren't actually seeing patients.
Residencies do specific things that are like homework, the "official" side of homework is probably the least you will ever have in your academic career, while the "unofficial" side will be the most.