How long did it take you to recover from residency?

[John Detter]

I just finished PGY2 and quite frankly, I'm extremely burnt out physically, mentally, and emotionally. I feel like a shark just chewed me up and spit me back out, and even though it's been almost 2 months since residency ended, I still feel like crap. I've been getting ~8-10 hours of sleep a night but still feel tired most of the time. I have been living in a state of mental "fogginess." I know I'm more apathetic towards things than I used to be and definitely more forgetful. Basically, I've been a hot mess.

To try to alleviate these symptoms, I've taken steps to reintroduce things that were essentially robbed from me during residency. In my two-month gap between PGY2 and a real job, I've spent time with friends and family, revisited old hobbies (and discovered a new one), started eating healthier again. I also refused to engage in anything pharmacy-related during this time unless absolutely necessary. This seemed to help some, and I would say this brought me from ~5% operating capacity to ~50%.

So for those who have gone through this, how long did it take you to fully recover from residency? What other things did you do to help with your recovery?

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[beautifulrobot]

I don't know what your residency experience was like or in what setting it was, but it isn't unheard of folks experiencing some level of post traumatic stress from their residency training (usually more often among emergency medicine residents). Two months is a long time to still be feeling in a funk. I would recommend checking in with your doctor to make sure something else isn't going on (either physical or mental or both).

 

[farmadiazepine]

Just get back into the wild and live your life to it's fullest. Now you realize life isn't all about work, but instead about family, friends, and the experiences you have. You were once a child, remember? Have fun.

No, I haven't ever done a residency, but when I graduated, I worked 70-80 hour weeks for the first 3 years of my "career" as a pharmacist. I basically gave up family, friends, and a social life in exchange for $220,000+ a year. The money was great, but I always felt like a zombie, like a socially awkward outcast. Mind you, I was always the type of person liked by everyone, could make friends with anyone, and knew how to make the best of social situations. It was weird..

I finally gave all that up, took a substantial paycut, and I put myself back into the world, and now I enjoy life more than ever. You need to find that balance. Life isn't all about work, and unfortunately with residency, that's all it is. Your life is work when you are a resident. Now you finally have time again (I hope) to figure out how to be a whole person again.

 

[mfdoom]

I felt exactly like this after finishing residency as well. When I started my job, I was still burnt out but also had this weird feeling of aimlessness on top of that, like, "now what?" You're on the right track by resuming hobbies and throwing in some self-care. Set up a new routine, get settled into a new groove. Get used to having free-time and a better work/life balance.

Honestly, I still feel burnt out a year later, but maybe I'm just one of those people who's tired all the time now.

 

[confettiflyer]

EDIT: clearly i didn't read the first post properly, i'll reply later.

 

[Charcoales]

I'm working 32 a week, it's a great balance to avoid burnout while still getting a somewhat decent pay

 

[lord999]

It's hard to rediscover your life again since you're incentivized to sublimate it to your work while you're in training. You're not alone, and actually, I don't necessarily think two months is out of line for a recovery so long as you feel that you are recovering. If you are recovering and feel that way, it takes as long as it takes. That said, if you feel stagnant or regressing, definitely take @giga 's advice.

One of the reasons I took the positions I did at work was to be deeply antisocial as my postgrad training basically maladjusted me to the point where I find talking with anyone about frivolities for any length at work to be disrespectful of my time. (While you can have this attitude at work, this is not a healthy one, there are plenty of good psychological reasons why small talk is necessary even if content-devoid. It is a pathology for me.) There are some maladaptions that you might be willing to work with (I really don't care for small talk at work even now and I've paid my dues to be intolerant of someone "wasting" my time with that and the counterparty knows that), but there are ones that you want to deemphasize.

Those changes from work that were maladaptions are going to be hard to break as they helped you to become successful. I wish you the best in working through the ones that you have self-identified, but I also recommend you go to an old true friend who has known you before school to assess what's changed about you. Some of these changes are age and life experience related as well, but since you have time to yourself, you should take the time to be introspective about what you really want as you've already given up so much.

 

[gwarm01]

You put in the time and sacrifice so please find a job that you enjoy and will allow you to live the life that you want.

Satisfaction and self worth will never truly come from work. Find a job you enjoy that gives you a sense of pride, but don't be afraid to leave it at work. You've had so much time and energy taken from you that you've forgotten who you are.. find pride and confident in yourself, don't look to others for affirmation. It'll take time to rebuild who you are.

 

[quickpic007]

I just finished PGY2 and quite frankly, I'm extremely burnt out physically, mentally, and emotionally. I feel like a shark just chewed me up and spit me back out, and even though it's been almost 2 months since residency ended, I still feel like crap. I've been getting ~8-10 hours of sleep a night but still feel tired most of the time. I have been living in a state of mental "fogginess." I know I'm more apathetic towards things than I used to be and definitely more forgetful. Basically, I've been a hot mess.

To try to alleviate these symptoms, I've taken steps to reintroduce things that were essentially robbed from me during residency. In my two-month gap between PGY2 and a real job, I've spent time with friends and family, revisited old hobbies (and discovered a new one), started eating healthier again. I also refused to engage in anything pharmacy-related during this time unless absolutely necessary. This seemed to help some, and I would say this brought me from ~5% operating capacity to ~50%.

So for those who have gone through this, how long did it take you to fully recover from residency? What other things did you do to help with your recovery?

I'd say find what makes you happy in and out of work. over my 4 year career I've had many interests--OT, travel, reading, saving money.

What kind of offers have you been getting??

 

[John Detter]

I don't know what your residency experience was like or in what setting it was, but it isn't unheard of folks experiencing some level of post traumatic stress from their residency training (usually more often among emergency medicine residents). Two months is a long time to still be feeling in a funk. I would recommend checking in with your doctor to make sure something else isn't going on (either physical or mental or both).

I really hated my PGY2 experience. I wouldn't even classify my institution as having particularly "intense" training from a clinical standpoint, but "live to work" was definitely the mentality of the pharmacists there. Therefore, the residents were expected to work even longer and harder. Along with complete dysfunction and a lack of communication between pharmacists, it made for a miserable year.

I'm working 32 a week, it's a great balance to avoid burnout while still getting a somewhat decent pay

I would totally opt for this if this was an option. However, most of the jobs I've seen expect 40 hours.

What kind of offers have you been getting??

I ended up accepting an offer for a position not quite in my field of my training but would allow me to slowly "ramp up" to the full responsibilities of a specialist in my field over the course of a few years. It was a unique opportunity, and I can't really say too much for privacy reasons. However I will say that I chose that over a traditional specialist position because it would allow me to reintroduce all the things I had mentioned in my original post.

 

[PharmDBro2017]

I understand the feeling like you need to sleep more, but 6-8 hours of sleep is all you need and you cannot "catch up" on sleep by getting 8-10+hrs on the weekend when you've had 4 hrs throughout the week. Science has proven that.

A healthy diet and exercise regimen should be vital... you need to challenge yourself physically in the weight room, outdoors, and in the kitchen. If your diet has been poor, maybe opt for a multivitamin for a little while too.

 

[Seriously Serious]

Would you say your sacrifice(s) were worth the position you obtained/hope to obtain?

 

[owlegrad]

I understand the feeling like you need to sleep more, but 6-8 hours of sleep is all you need and you cannot "catch up" on sleep by getting 8-10+hrs on the weekend when you've had 4 hrs throughout the week. Science has proven that.

I am curious where that information comes from. I feel like I "catch up" fairly often and as far as I know a sense of wakefulness or of being refreshed is pretty subjective so what does it mean that science has proven that is not the case?

 

[Deja]

I understand the feeling like you need to sleep more, but 6-8 hours of sleep is all you need and you cannot "catch up" on sleep by getting 8-10+hrs on the weekend when you've had 4 hrs throughout the week. Science has proven that.

A healthy diet and exercise regimen should be vital... you need to challenge yourself physically in the weight room, outdoors, and in the kitchen. If your diet has been poor, maybe opt for a multivitamin for a little while too.

What？！ I've been sleeping 4hrs on work days since forever! damn it lol

 

[lord999]

I am curious where that information comes from. I feel like I "catch up" fairly often and as far as I know a sense of wakefulness or of being refreshed is pretty subjective so what does it mean that science has proven that is not the case?

Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society | Sleep | Oxford Academic
Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society on the Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: Methodology and Discussion

It's not actually decided fact right now in the sense of the neurophysiology, because the quantity versus quality of sleep is such a matter that you pretty much need a sleep study to really know your patterns (though the sleep docs probably can talk our ears off). I've seen people with just horrible apnea sleep terribly for 7 hours and not be rested. I actually don't "need" that much sleep (I know this due to being a subject who had DSPS for an AMEDD experiment done on me where I was kept on Provigil for 96 hours on/6 off for a combat readiness study and my baseline was 6 hours normally at that time in my life), but I really like sleep and luxuriate in 8-10 hours a day (my sleep is usually between 0000 and 0200 to 1000) now with a wake cycle at my pleasure (my official duties do not start until I do). I still have DSPS, but I consciously made my work such that I sleep as naturally as possible when I feel like it.

 

[Amicable Angora]

OP I wouldn't be surprised if it took you a good half year or longer to recover. That would be very normal.

 

[Apotheker2015]

I just finished PGY2 and quite frankly, I'm extremely burnt out physically, mentally, and emotionally. I feel like a shark just chewed me up and spit me back out, and even though it's been almost 2 months since residency ended, I still feel like crap. I've been getting ~8-10 hours of sleep a night but still feel tired most of the time. I have been living in a state of mental "fogginess." I know I'm more apathetic towards things than I used to be and definitely more forgetful. Basically, I've been a hot mess.

To try to alleviate these symptoms, I've taken steps to reintroduce things that were essentially robbed from me during residency. In my two-month gap between PGY2 and a real job, I've spent time with friends and family, revisited old hobbies (and discovered a new one), started eating healthier again. I also refused to engage in anything pharmacy-related during this time unless absolutely necessary. This seemed to help some, and I would say this brought me from ~5% operating capacity to ~50%.

So for those who have gone through this, how long did it take you to fully recover from residency? What other things did you do to help with your recovery?

I didn't go through residency but was part of the support system of two friends who went through two very exacting PGY-2 programs. They went to different places. One finished and they other one dropped out.
I'd say you want to make sure you continue eating healthy, maybe even get your vitamin D levels checked - it doesn't sound like you were getting a whole lot of of sun and of course, exercise. Make it a point to exercise first thing in the morning. Give it all you've got and let the world have what you have left over the rest of the day - which in theory should still be pretty good because you started the day right. That used to work very well for me in my 20s. Nowadays, I could try doing that more often.