How much free time do/did you have during psychiatry residency?

[nebuchadnezzarII]

Hi everyone, thank you for reading this post. I am starting intern year in a month in psychiatry and wanted to get a good sense of if I will have time to pursue my hobbies.

For PGY-1, schedule seems to be 8-5 with evening call q6. Medicine months is q4 call. No overnights overall. PGY-2 is better, PGY-3 is completely outpatient, PGY-4 is no call. I think it's pretty average in terms of psychiatry programs, but I wanted to get the perspective of people who are living through it or have lived through it. Thanks.

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[BiscoDisco]

Medicine will be terrible. Just plan for that.

As far as intern year goes, definitely had time to do things. You'll quickly see how much different being a psych intern is from being a medicine or surgery intern.

 

[myPsychAlt]

Hi everyone, thank you for reading this post. I am starting intern year in a month in psychiatry and wanted to get a good sense of if I will have time to pursue my hobbies.

For PGY-1, schedule seems to be 8-5 with evening call q6. Medicine months is q4 call. No overnights overall. PGY-2 is better, PGY-3 is completely outpatient, PGY-4 is no call. I think it's pretty average in terms of psychiatry programs, but I wanted to get the perspective of people who are living through it or have lived through it. Thanks.

So wait, who's covering weekends/nights at your program then?

 

[Celexa]

Hi everyone, thank you for reading this post. I am starting intern year in a month in psychiatry and wanted to get a good sense of if I will have time to pursue my hobbies.

For PGY-1, schedule seems to be 8-5 with evening call q6. Medicine months is q4 call. No overnights overall. PGY-2 is better, PGY-3 is completely outpatient, PGY-4 is no call. I think it's pretty average in terms of psychiatry programs, but I wanted to get the perspective of people who are living through it or have lived through it. Thanks.

Only your seniors in your program can give you any useful information. Call schedule is only part of how tired or busy you will be. As important is how many patients you carry on a service, how good your ancillary support is, and whether call shifts involve sleeping 90% of the time or nonstop work. Strangers on the internet don't know these variables for your institution.

 

[Monocles]

Largely depends on your program and how efficient you are. I tended to be on the faster end so I always left on time and never brought work home. However I do remember pgy-1 year being the busiest by far.

 

[nexus73]

1 hour per day patient care. The rest of the time spent on sdn reading about psychologists who think they can do therapy better than us psychiatrists.

 

[nebuchadnezzarII]

Thanks guys. I realize the futility of the question as being specific to my program. I guess I wanted a general sense of how you felt on average. Of course, it varies by program, but I do feel more comfortable knowing the experiences of others. I can't always get the raw truth from program seniors like I can get on an anonymous message board. I appreciate all your answers!

 

[J ROD]

First and second years were busy but still was able to have a life. Third and fourth year were much slower. 4th year was a waste and had months off. Basically just supervising other junior residents.

 

[Bartelby]

I would say PGY-1 medicine clocked in close to 80 hours/week. Neurology more like 60 (and no neuro call shifts). My other rotations were typically anywhere from 40 hours on the light side to 60 hours on the heavier side, plus some overnight psychiatry call (I think typically 2x/month).

PGY-2 I worked maybe 50 hours per week on average in daytime rotations, but had call overnight or 24-hour weekend call about once a week. There was also some night float time, that is about 14 hours per day either five or six days per week (I forget). Basically you stay up all night and sleep all day, don't expect to get much done otherwise.

PGY-3 it came down to much closer to 40 hours/week though with call every two weeks (overnight or 24-hour)

PGY-4 I worked a real 40 hour week at a pretty relaxed pace, and took only pretty easy from-home call.

I also spent time outside of work hours reading about relevant topics and writing up papers. I don't have a great sense of the amount of time spent on that, but basically that falls into how I chose to spend free time.

I think my program was on the heavier workload side, but some require more. It's been a while at this point so I may be mixing up the details.

 

[Stagg737]

At my program I'm averaging 50-55hrs/week through the first 2 years. That's including 4 months of medicine where I averaged 65-70 hours per week. I also tend to be one of the slower people in my program and spend more time at work as I take a chunk out of each day to teach med students when they're there and do some reading on my own. It also depends heavily on the rotation. Some of our VA rotations are very light and ~40 hour work weeks aren't uncommon, while other rotations can be rougher (consults) and end up being 60+ hours. My program allows for plenty of time for hobbies on most rotations though. We only have overnight call during the week during 2nd year, so I'd say it's the roughest in terms of time commitment. I have 3-5 overnight calls per month and 0-2 weekend call days depending on the rotation. Next month I have 3 overnights and a 24-hr weekend call day.

PGY3 and 4 only take call if they want to for extra pay to cover our private units. Otherwise they're just back-up call (I've called my back-up person a total of 2 times). 3rd and 4th year seem pretty consistent across most programs, so it's really just first two years you need to ask about in-depth.

 

[milesed]

I trained in 1996-2001.
My 1st year- about 80-100hr/week and psyc call was worse than IM or Neuro.
2nd year- closer to 40/wk plus call which was every 8th night= 44h/week average
3rd year- about 30/wk and had the ability to moonlight 1 day/week at CMHC which I HIGHLY recommend. You will see lots more patients and really develop skills rapidly. Call was 1/20 days for the program and no call for moonlighting.
4th year- same as third and was also a 1st year C/A fellow
5th year- I continued the C/A fellowship and could have gotten by working only 3 day a week, moonlighting 2. I worked one 10 hour day a week moonlighting and worked about 25 hours for the program (call was 3rd line and I was never called). I also was moonlighting on every holiday I had off and many Saturdays at CMHC. I tripled my residency pay doing this my 5th year and the 3 years of part-time moonlighting equaled about 1 year of full-time work. On day 1 of my first real job I was way ahead of those who didn't moonlight. I loved the work and didn't mind the extra hours and pay at all.