How Difficult to Take 1 Vacation Day during Ward Months as PGY-1?

[IonClaws]

My fiance and I are planning to have a courthouse wedding in September of my PGY-1 year and I am thinking I will use a vacation day to make the date as the courthouse is only open on weekdays.

Most of PGY-1 year where I believe I will end up is on general medicine wards. How likely is it that the PD will grant me such a day? Would it make a difference if I offered to work an entire weekend as well?

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[BoardingDoc]

My fiance and I are planning to have a courthouse wedding in September of my PGY-1 year and I am thinking I will use a vacation day to make the date as the courthouse is only open on weekdays.

Most of PGY-1 year where I believe I will end up is on general medicine wards. How likely is it that the PD will grant me such a day? Would it make a difference if I offered to work an entire weekend as well?

You're asking for a single day of coverage so you can get married? You should have zero problems whatsoever. Even the most malignant programs out there should be amenable to providing 24 hours of coverage.

 

[Raryn]

My fiance and I are planning to have a courthouse wedding in September of my PGY-1 year and I am thinking I will use a vacation day to make the date as the courthouse is only open on weekdays.

Most of PGY-1 year where I believe I will end up is on general medicine wards. How likely is it that the PD will grant me such a day? Would it make a difference if I offered to work an entire weekend as well?

You'll have 3-4 weeks of vacation for sure. If you want to get married not on one of those weeks? Let the program know ASAP (the week you match preferably) and it can probably be arranged.

That said, they may (likely will) force you to take a week or more of your vacation at that time though. We couldn't take smaller quantities than that. The worst was a friend of mine who got 4 weeks of vacation intern year... that had to be taken as a 4 week block. Period. So he got married that winter and he took his month off then as well.

 

[hamstergang]

At my program we had this built in. That is, we worked 6 days out of each week on the wards, and every now and then that one day off was a weekday instead of a weekend.

 

[Crayola227]

You likely would not need to use vacation time. My program was very small and residents could trade days provided no one went over work hours.

In fact, I worked an extra day so one of my colleagues intern year could have the weekend with a spouse who was visiting from out of state (LDR for prelim year).

The idea was to pay me back for that day. I'm not sure they did, but I wasn't that fussed about it. I wouldn't have volunteered if I was.

Consider as well if it might be possible just to leave early one day and sign the pager out early - I did that a few times to attend a doctor appt in the afternoon when I only needed a few hours not a whole day off. Easy peasy.

Maybe that would give you two enough time to head down?

If you just go to your Chief or PD early and you're very flexible how to do this, it will be fine.

It's possible they would make you use vacation time

 

[Crayola227]

It isn't as easy as just working a weekend to make up a day, like it might be as a student, where the goal is that you are present and learning making up the day that way.

In residency, you can't just take off Monday and work Saturday instead because of coverage. Who takes care of your patients Monday?

 

[Raryn]

You likely would not need to use vacation time. My program was very small and residents could trade days provided no one went over work hours.

This is really program dependent. My residency was large and residents could also trade days provided no one went over work hours.

No one but the nightfloat person had any weekdays other than vacations/holidays off. Period. All other days off were structured to be on the weekend. Interns on wards got every other weekend off (=4 days/month). Interns on elective got every weekend off (minus the rare coverage). The nightfloat person couldn't trade with anyone because it would screw with duty hours when it came to the transition for people off/on night float.

You could trade with as many people as you wanted, you'd never have a random Tuesday empty without taking vacation. Unless you happened to be on nightfloat and that Tuesday happened to be the one day designated by the algorithm that the medicine intern is off (=1 in 4 chance).

Edit: That said, I did just think of one additional exception: People on elective were allowed to take random weekdays off for Step 3 if they gave appropriate notice. But I can't think of that mechanism being used for anything else .

 

[doc05]

Wait till an elective rotation. Will be easier to take the day off

 

[AMEHigh]

This is so program dependent that you'll need to ask at your program. In my residency there are a few months that you absolutely cannot take vacation time. However, before the year begins the program director asks everyone to submit weeks that they need time off and they try to accommodate everyone's requests so that they're not on a rotation that they can't take time off.

 

[AdmiralChz]

My fiance and I are planning to have a courthouse wedding in September of my PGY-1 year and I am thinking I will use a vacation day to make the date as the courthouse is only open on weekdays.

Most of PGY-1 year where I believe I will end up is on general medicine wards. How likely is it that the PD will grant me such a day? Would it make a difference if I offered to work an entire weekend as well?

Once you match let them know you are getting married and when. They will probably place you on elective that month and give you the requisite time off. All about letting them know EARLY and not last minute (like July when you first get there) - I am sure you won’t have any issues with being able to make it happen, unless you are a particularly malignant and nasty program I suppose.

 

[Celexa]

Interesting to see all the different ways schedules are managed. At my home IM program this would be a non issue, as on ward months the residents and interns on each team work out their days off as a group (everyone gets one day in seven, averaged over the month, generally people should not take the same day off, no days off on admitting days). Taking weekdays as days off (not vacation!) is very normal.

 

[BigRedBeta]

My residency (peds) required that vacations be taken in one week blocks, so this wouldn't have been possible. IF this ceremony was a must that it happen during a wards month, they would have told you to use one of your off days (you do get 1 per week) and work it out with your senior. But it wouldn't have been vacation usage.

 

[PTPoeny]

As long as you told my residency program about this early on (like right after the match) they would have have been happy to make sure that you were on elective in September even though you only get a few electives intern year. Technically we didn't get weekdays off while on service ever, but my program would also have been okay with switching a day with another intern to get coverage for the day for something like this.