Hour differences i.e. ophtho vs NS

[jmillski]

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Any of the current residents out there- do any of you ever look around and appreciate the structure of your residency when you look at other co residents and their hours in other specialties? Or are the hour differences less than hyped. Do you see a noticable difference between your hours and those of the neurosurgery residents?

 

[Visionary]

Neurosurgery? No comparison! A classmate of mine did neurosurgery. Horrendous hours. They really earn their pay, both in hours and duration of residency. Of course, you couldn't pay me enough to do that.

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[doctortom]

Agree with the above. The new work hour regulations have had minimal impact on the neurosurgery residents at my home institution. They basically still work >100 hours per week and don't complain about it at all. Any surgical subspecialty which admits their patients post-op (most other than ophtho) is going to have brutal hours... You have to round on inpatients before going to preop, round with an attending again later in the day, write notes, put in orders, staff consults etc etc in addition to being in the OR where "the majority of your learning occurs".

 

[bucknut101]

Agree with all responses. Since ophthalmology is 99% clinic, the hours are pretty good. In my case it was usually 40-50 hours a week. The only exception would be when you were on call over the weekend then it could get get pretty crazy sometimes. But even with weekend call I never came close to breaking the 80 hour work week rule.

In fact (I was thinking abou this earlier today) I'm in private practice now and I work more hours per week on average than I did in residency or fellowship! Our group has clinic hours beginning at 7AM and I usually don't finish with the last patient till around 530PM or so. Then I have to finish charts (which is 1 million times worse now that we started EMR), do dictations, fill out paperwork, etc.

 

[Dusn]

There's a lot of variability between ophtho residency programs depending on how much trauma they get (and if any other programs around them are sharing the emergency cases and taking transfers). Our first years are definitely at or near the 80 hour work week consistently. However, it gets easier after first year. It is not comparable to neurosurgery hours, however, few specialties are. In my opinion, it is definitely comparable to non-surgical specialty hours, such as medicine, and to some of the other easier surgical sub-specialties.

 

[MR1]

Intern - 80 hour weeks unless on elective month

Residency - averaged about 50-60 hour weeks

Retina fellowship - more like 55-70 hour weeks

Once done - hoping for 50 hour weeks, hopefully not a pipe dream

 

[Visionary]

Intern - 80 hour weeks unless on elective month

Residency - averaged about 50-60 hour weeks

Retina fellowship - more like 55-70 hour weeks

Once done - hoping for 50 hour weeks, hopefully not a pipe dream

Not saying I'm the average, but I put in roughly 40 hrs/wk plus Q6wk call. Pretty sweet.