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What are the typical "work hours" during the clinical years? Is it a 9-5 situation or is it more like residency?
Thanks.
Thanks.
hours during clinicals?
- Thread starter JHUT
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every experience varies from hospital to hospital, service to service and student to student. sometimes extremely varied.
8 weeks internal medicine.....usually got there about 6:30 to pre-round on patients. rounds started at 9:30 -noon or 1 usually. Then follow up on loose ends and stuff. usually got out of there around 4-5. sometimes as late as 5:30 or 6, but rarely.
Neurology absolutely stunk. very long hours and lots of clinic. day started around 7:00 and didn't leave till around 6-7 everyday.
psychiatry. started around 8:30 and was home at 4 without fail.
having said that. I have friends that were on different services (hem, ocn, pulmonary etc...) they may have better or worse hours. Some of the students weren't leaving medicine until 9p.m. almost every night (bad attending).
Your senior residents and interns really decide how long and hard the rotation will be and you can't predict that.
later
8 weeks internal medicine.....usually got there about 6:30 to pre-round on patients. rounds started at 9:30 -noon or 1 usually. Then follow up on loose ends and stuff. usually got out of there around 4-5. sometimes as late as 5:30 or 6, but rarely.
Neurology absolutely stunk. very long hours and lots of clinic. day started around 7:00 and didn't leave till around 6-7 everyday.
psychiatry. started around 8:30 and was home at 4 without fail.
having said that. I have friends that were on different services (hem, ocn, pulmonary etc...) they may have better or worse hours. Some of the students weren't leaving medicine until 9p.m. almost every night (bad attending).
Your senior residents and interns really decide how long and hard the rotation will be and you can't predict that.
later
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I have a question related to this. If you have a dog and you're single, what do you do? Get a dogwalker?
I mean, yeah you might not be able socialize with friends, to do laundry for weeks (or months at time), run errands, cook, etc. But what happens when you have a dog to take care of? How do you manage?
I mean, yeah you might not be able socialize with friends, to do laundry for weeks (or months at time), run errands, cook, etc. But what happens when you have a dog to take care of? How do you manage?
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Work hours vary A LOT depending on what rotation, what hospital and what residents/attendings you have. My experience as a third-year:
medicine: 6:30 ish to 5 pm ish, unless on call (q4)
surgery: 5 am ish (occasionally earlier, plus I had it at the end of the year and could write notes fast) until 6-7 pm ish (unless on call)
psych: 7 am until 5
neuro: 7:30 ish to 5:30 unless on call
family practice: 8:30 ish to 5:30 ish
anesthesia: 6:30 to 3-4 ish
OB: 6 am to 7 pm
peds: 8 am to 5 ish
I had classmates who had medicine hours 5 am until 8 pm regularly, and others who had 7 am to 1 pm regularly....luck of the draw, really. Surgery is notorious for med students arriving at 4 am to pre-round, working until 8:30 pm if you are on a super-busy service....my point is there's no guarantee.
medicine: 6:30 ish to 5 pm ish, unless on call (q4)
surgery: 5 am ish (occasionally earlier, plus I had it at the end of the year and could write notes fast) until 6-7 pm ish (unless on call)
psych: 7 am until 5
neuro: 7:30 ish to 5:30 unless on call
family practice: 8:30 ish to 5:30 ish
anesthesia: 6:30 to 3-4 ish
OB: 6 am to 7 pm
peds: 8 am to 5 ish
I had classmates who had medicine hours 5 am until 8 pm regularly, and others who had 7 am to 1 pm regularly....luck of the draw, really. Surgery is notorious for med students arriving at 4 am to pre-round, working until 8:30 pm if you are on a super-busy service....my point is there's no guarantee.
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The number of days depends on the rotation. For instance, medicine is often seven days per week, while psych will often be 5 or 6. Surgery, OB-GYN are often 6-7 days per week. Family medicine, generally 5.
Also, maybe I chose the wrong school, but our hours for some rotations are longer than what people have listed! So don't take these as gospel or you may be disappointed -- all the hours vary from school to school, and even within a school, from team to team. Even if you got 40 responses here, you still wouldn't know what to expect for your own situation. Third or fourth years at your school should be able to tell you more.
At my school, medicine is generally at least a 10-12 hour day, closer to 24 if you are on call. Family medicine hours are the same as what people describe above. Psych is generally 8 - 5, but hours are longer on some services. For GYN the hours are very long: 4 am to 8-10 pm on days without call; for OB one gets there at 6 am and the hours depend if you have 24 hour call.
Also, maybe I chose the wrong school, but our hours for some rotations are longer than what people have listed! So don't take these as gospel or you may be disappointed -- all the hours vary from school to school, and even within a school, from team to team. Even if you got 40 responses here, you still wouldn't know what to expect for your own situation. Third or fourth years at your school should be able to tell you more.
At my school, medicine is generally at least a 10-12 hour day, closer to 24 if you are on call. Family medicine hours are the same as what people describe above. Psych is generally 8 - 5, but hours are longer on some services. For GYN the hours are very long: 4 am to 8-10 pm on days without call; for OB one gets there at 6 am and the hours depend if you have 24 hour call.
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Some of it might also depend on what hospital/outpatient setting you happen to get assigned to. I know that my hours for OB have been awesome (6:45 - 4 or 5pm, call 1X/wk, no weekends) compared to some of my classmates (6am-8 or 9pm, 6 days/wk). We rank which sites we want and get assigned randomly via lottery. I got very, very lucky. But it works both ways - when i did outpatient Peds, i worked M-F 8am-5 or 6, while i know of quite a few classmates who only worked 9-4 (or shorter) 3 -4 days/wk.
So even within the same med school, your hours might be totally different from another student on that same rotation. I still think i lucked out, having heard all the OB/Gyn horror stories.
So even within the same med school, your hours might be totally different from another student on that same rotation. I still think i lucked out, having heard all the OB/Gyn horror stories.
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dnl425 said:
Get rid of the dog
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dnl425 said:
Maybe the best thing to do is to find a roommate, or move in with your boyfriend/girlfriend. I think it would be rough for a single person to get rid their dog right before rotations - there would be no one there when you came home at night. 🙁
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dnl425 said:
These people are idiots. If you live alone and "need" to have a pet, get a cat. They dont really need you around. Maybe 2-3x week to change the litter box, set out some food and water, and scratch them when youre around....they do not have the same needs as dogs.
I think the same about these students as I do when I see people on welfare with pets.....*****S!!!!
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gatsbyjo said:
Come on now.....nowhere near the same situation. People usually dont "decide" to have children or "need" to have children. They kinda come along and its a responsibility one must manage. A pet is a luxery....pure and simple. Get over it.
stomper
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stomper627 said:
yeah! poor people suck!
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stomper627 said:
And therein lies the problem. If only people would "decide" to have children and they didn't just come when unwanted. It would solve a whole lot of problems in this world.
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JHUT said:
So back to the original question. I think it depends a lot on where you go to school. I go to a lower ranked state school and was surprised to find when I did externships at several much higher ranked schools than the students didn't work near as much. We had to take overnight call every 4th night during our peds rotation while at these two schools there was no overnight call in peds. Also they had to option to do surgery and medicine at private hospitals where things were more cush with hardly any call, an option we don't have. Amazingly enough, they'll be the ones who graduate with the more impressive degree.
