Hours on

[HunterGatherer]

---

Members do not see this ad.

What are the usual schedules on rotations for MS3's? Is it always a 5 day work week with weekends off or are does the scheduled days vary? Is there call? These are pretty basic questions and possibly ridiculous but I don't remember seeing this topic explicity discussed for medical students. Thanks.

 

[DrMom]

depends a lot on the rotation.

For some rotations at my school, we're expected to do 12 hr days for 12 days in a row & then got 2 days off. Some rotations will require call (being on over night). Others tend to be shorter (I personally had really short hours on peds & psych wasn't too bad). Most of the others are somewhere in between.

 

[pillowhead]

It's okay to ask these basic questions. It's never directly addressed because people just assume you know, but if no one ever told you, how would you know?

It really depends on the rotation. For example, for surgery, generally speaking we arrived at 5am for pre-rounds and stayed until 5pm-7pm on regular days. On long call days (every 4th day for one month), we stayed until 9-10pm or so but had no post-call day and were back at 5am the next morning. On overnight call days (every 4th day for one month), you get in at 5am and stay until about 11am the next day. Then you have the rest of the day off as a post-call day. I was very lucky in that I generally got off Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday every week which was pretty generous.

For family practice, it was 7:45am until 4-5pm Monday through Friday with no call.

For internal medicine, we arrive just before 7am and leave around 5-7pm on regular days and around 10-11pm on long call days (every 4th day). There is no real post-call day, but teams generally round 1/2 an hour to an hour later after a long call day. You get one day a week off which can be any day but should not be long call days.

Pediatrics is fairly similar to internal medicine, ob/gyn is similar to surgery, and neuro is similar to family practice. Psych is generally easier hours, coming in around 8:30am and leaving around 4:30-5pm but we take long call once a week at the psych ER meaning you stay until around 11pm or so. Weekends are generally off but not always.

 

[robotsonic]

The number of hours you work and whether you get weekends off really depends on the rotation, the school you are at, and the hospital (if your school has a few hospitals at which you can do the rotations). The best way to find out what your schedule for 3rd year might be like is to ask current 3rd years at your school. That's pretty much the only way to find out, actually. What pillowhead said is generally true, in that you can expect to be in the hospital more hours during surgery and ob/gyn than during peds and psych, but this is not always true. Another general rule is that you will be working harder in 3rd year than during the first two years of med school, but the type of work is a lot different.

Talk to some 3rd and 4th years at your school.

 

[RustNeverSleeps]

What are the usual schedules on rotations for MS3's? Is it always a 5 day work week with weekends off or are does the scheduled days vary? Is there call? These are pretty basic questions and possibly ridiculous but I don't remember seeing this topic explicity discussed for medical students. Thanks.

Highly varies according to school, as other posters have mentioned. Some rotations at my school, particularly IM, surgery, and OB-Gyn, are particularly painful, with long hours and few days off. It is pretty rare, in my experience, to work 5 days and have 2 days off. One day per week off is more common, and on at least three rotations at my school, you can't even get that. I had two instances when I worked over 21 straight days without a day off. I'm so glad that year is behind me! 😛

 

[HunterGatherer]

Thanks for all of the replies! I'm currently applying to med school now so I'm just looking for a rough idea of what is possible. What does Ob/gyn generally entail? thanks.

 

[Hurricane]

Thanks for all of the replies! I'm currently applying to med school now so I'm just looking for a rough idea of what is possible. What does Ob/gyn generally entail? thanks.

Like everyone else said: highly variable. As a general rule, the main university hospital has the hardest schedule, and the outlying community hospitals have easier schedules. At my school, there are 2 very busy hospitals for ob/gyn, and the students get there around 5 and stay until 5 or 6, and are on overnight call every 4th night, and mean residents. I did my ob/gyn rotation at one of the community hospitals, where most of the patients are private patients. I got there at 6:30 and was usually done by 3, and had "call" once a week when I had to stay until 11 at the very latest, and was off on the weekends. I was only there that late one night, and only because we were watching the Amazing Race finale, and I wanted to see the end. 🙂 The hospital was a half hour drive away, but well worth it for the easy schedule and friendly residents.

However, I knew that I had no desire to go into ob/gyn. As a general rule, if you want to go into a specialty, you need to do the rotation at one of the "harder" places, preferably the main university hospital. Not necessarily because you learn less at a community hospital, but so you can get good letters of recommendation and comments for your dean's letter.

 

[tiredmom]

At our program:
Surgery was divided into different rotations: on Vascular: we were off 1 day per weekend, working 15-16 hour days the other 6 of the week. ER rotation was a breeze, with #10 8 hour shifts over 3 weeks. General surgery varied per team: mine was the trauma surgery rotation - spent 3 weeks in trauma bay and 3 weeks in the SICU... 6a-6p on days with 1 day off other than post call day. Call was every 5th night for general (24 hours) some had to go back to their team afterwards until noon, we didn't.
Ob: we cover clinic (out by 5), days in triage (out by 6) and nights in triage (in at 5p out after morning rounds), for both ob and gyn. It's a lot better schedule than surgery was.
I hear psych's better with mainly day hours and call like 1 night per week.
IM is supposed to have long days, but no true overnight call.
Peds I hear has overnight shifts and day shifts, but not terrible hours.
Family is supposed to be sweet with M-F days 🙂

My recommendation is to start off with surgery... we did, and now every schedule gets better and better 🙂 🙂 🙂
Some schools have unoffical surveys/reviews of the different sites/rotations by previous classes, might be helpful.

 

[nabeya]

At the hospital where I'm at now for Family Medicine, it's Mon-Fri and never have stayed past 530pm. Usually start at 7am and see the pt's until 10am for rounds until 1230pm. The rest of the day is usually admitting pt's from the ER into the hospital and in between we can do whatever we want (sleep, read, eat). When in the clinic, it's usually just 830am-500pm with an hour for lunch.

What are the usual schedules on rotations for MS3's? Is it always a 5 day work week with weekends off or are does the scheduled days vary? Is there call? These are pretty basic questions and possibly ridiculous but I don't remember seeing this topic explicity discussed for medical students. Thanks.

 

[samia786]

Hi to everybody! Hope everyone is okay. My name is Samia. I have got a place at Manchester University to study medicine in 2006.
All I wanted to know if it is not too much bother for anyone, is what are the clinical placements like in Year 3 and 4? Quite obviously they'l be hard, but what are the hours like? Is it always 9-5?
Is there anybody in this forum studying medicine at Manchester medical school or Keele?

Thankyou for your time

 

[Adcadet]

I've had a few electives as a third year where it was pretty much 8-4 or 9-4, M-F, with some afternoons completely optional. And then there was peds where I was working about 80 hours/week minimum.