How much actual control?

[FulfilledDeer]

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Hey everyone, I'm new here, but for a couple of days now have been pretty much tearing apart this forum reading about the realities of EM. Luckily I'm not too fazed-most of the bad stuff I was pretty much expecting. I do have a question though, one I haven't even thought of asking the EP's I've shadowed: How much control do you really have over your schedule? There is a lot of talk about front-loading months and taking weeks off if you're feeling burned out and that sort of stuff, but how capably (given your practice set up) can you actually do that? Do decisions like that come at the cost of "worse" (non-preferred) shifts? That is to say, if you hypothetically decided to work part time for a while, would that pretty much entail all night shifts?

I'm just curious because it has been my experience in looking at other specialties that while some may have apparent flexible scheduling, other factors make it so that any benefit of that is basically nil. Thanks.

 

[GeneralVeers]

The amount of control you have depends on your group, and your status within a group. If you are full partner in a group you may have more control than if you are a new hire.

In my group we request monthly how many shifts we want. Technically I could work as few as 12 shifts, but in reality 15 is the minimum due to the staffing. We also can block for a maximum of 10 days vacation in a month, and that can be broken up into smaller blocks or a full 10 day block. So far I've never been denied a vacation request.