I Declare Defeat

[8744]

I was wrong. You were right. I confess. How could I have been so stupid?

After much deliberation, I concede, with humility that, on an hourly basis, I do indeed make more than the guy slapping my burrito together at Taco Bell by a tiny but never-the-less statistically significant margin.

Those nice fellows assembling my Gordito are so pwned!

 

[Solideliquid]

Mmmm...Taco Bell...

 

[lateness]

Mmmm...Taco Bell...

you guys leave taco bell out of this, i needs my tacos and burriots..
make fun of mcdonalds or some other chain...

 

[Faebinder]

Are we adding overtime or not?

lets say interns make 43k a year... 49 work weeks (okay 50 in some cases but 49 is usually the case).

So lets say 65 hours work per week. Well the 25 hours extra are technically overtime.. so 1.5 times. So 77.5 regular hours.

$11.3 per hour.

Not as low as taco bell... In my region, interns get 41.5k and taco bell people get 8 per hour. So $10.9 per hour for interns and that is still 3 dollars higher.

I would like to say we arent minimum wage yes...

And no, I wouldn't feel half as bad if i was without loans that impact every time I wanted to buy a car, rent an appartment, buy a house, apply to a credit card, subsidize a computer....

Add the marriage and the kids factor.. it becomes awful considering you are not working 40 hours and dont have time to do house work or pick up the kids a lot of times... so you are depending on a partner to do it, which means they cant work else you will have to pay someone to do it.

Honestly, it's no surprise that docs have high divorce rates... who can afford to stay married in residency without some seriously understanding and committed spouse.

 

[Apollyon]

I mathed it out for my (and PandaBear's) specialty of EM - when in the department, for straight time, it's about $17/hour, if I recall correctly. If you math out "time and a half" (which is a theoretical concept in this case), it's about $13/hr.

 

[Miami_med]

Man, the surgery residents with the 80 hour weeks may not be making it to Taco Bell level.

 

[Mman]

When I was a medical student on a surgery rotation cranking out 120 hours a week for the low, low price of $2,000 tuition a month I tried to work out that math and just ended up depressed before I figured out at what rate I was going into debt.

 

[DrNick2006]

Thus far in my intern year thanks to my duty hour log I know I have worked 2280 hours and have made before taxes 26875 for a hourly rate of 11.78. If you want to consider anything over 40 hours "time and a half" of my hourly rate than on average I worked 65 hours a week since starting residency,

thus 26875/{[2280 *4/6.5 ]+ [1.5(2280 2.5/6.5)]} = 9.89 per hour

 

[dutchman]

And some say doctors are overpayed.

 

[Blade28]

So lets say 65 hours work per week. Well the 25 hours extra are technically overtime.. so 1.5 times. So 77.5 regular hours.

65 hours a week? Where does this happen?

 

[mr burrito]

did someone say burrito?

 

[Faebinder]

65 hours a week? Where does this happen?

Psychiatry? Pathology? Dermatology? Yes those specialties do exist.

 

[Faebinder]

Lets see what do the poor surgery interns make.... They of course only record 80 hours work (lets not count the 6 protected CME that are not counted in the 80 hrs and of course the hours you secretly don't claim even though you did work in them)....

So..

80 hours are like 100 hours cause time and a half for those 40 hours.

49 weeks work and 41.5k is what the intern makes in my region.

comes out to be $8.5 per hour...

The taco bell night shift makes around that much...

I rest my case.

 

[8744]

65 hours a week? Where does this happen?

Emergency Medicine, baby!

But we still get treated like scut-oxen on our off-service rotations (a total of eight) in first year.

 

[8744]

I mathed it out for my (and PandaBear's) specialty of EM - when in the department, for straight time, it's about $17/hour, if I recall correctly. If you math out "time and a half" (which is a theoretical concept in this case), it's about $13/hr.

Which is why I don't mind as much working in the department. I'm still getting ass-raped but at least I get a reach-around. And it is pertinent to my area of interest. I have a "Preemie" nursery rotation coming up, however, where I will once again be just a warm body to handle the clerical work. (But to be honest, on this rotation I will be entirely redundant and not even worth payng minimum wage.)

 

[Transvaal]

I live in the Netherlands, and the employees at my local supermarket (age 23 and up) make a solid 13 bucks an hour at the least.

AGNIO's (sort of the equivalent of interns) make about 43 k ($) for a 50-hr work week minus taxes and bonuses, residents start somewhere around 48 k using the same criteria. They usually end up doing somewhere around 60 hours per week though (from what I've heard and seen) in the hospital.

 

[8744]

I live in the Netherlands, and the employees at my local supermarket (age 23 and up) make a solid 13 bucks an hour at the least.

AGNIO's (sort of the equivalent of interns) make about 43 k ($) for a 50-hr work week minus taxes and bonuses, residents start somewhere around 48 k using the same criteria. They usually end up doing somewhere around 60 hours per week though (from what I've heard and seen) in the hospital.

You know, a sixty hour work week is not bad and about what we do at my EM program. You work hard, learn a lot, but at the end of the month you can look back and say that not every minute of your waking day was devoted to your job which is how you feel working 80 hours per week. Now, maybe some of you want to devote every minute of your day to your job but not everybody does, even to jobs that they like.

Sixty hours also gives you some leeway to moonlight. It's kind of hard to moonlight doing Q4 call for the simple reason that you are violating the ACGME regulations (one) and you are pretty friggin' tired (two).

 

[DrNick2006]

65 hours a week? Where does this happen?

I am at U mich for Internal Medicine. But the 65 hours is not totally accurate because 3 weeks of the 35 so far were vacation, and I have already done all my elective time. My ward months average right about 75-80.

 

[foo]

Hmm... the EM residents are only averaging 60-65 hours per week. It would be really great if they would take the time to make some gorditas for those residents that are working 80 hours and don't have time to go to Taco Bell. Perhaps it could be part of a burrito elective? ;-)

 

[Transvaal]

You know, a sixty hour work week is not bad and about what we do at my EM program. You work hard, learn a lot, but at the end of the month you can look back and say that not every minute of your waking day was devoted to your job which is how you feel working 80 hours per week. Now, maybe some of you want to devote every minute of your day to your job but not everybody does, even to jobs that they like.

Sixty hours also gives you some leeway to moonlight. It's kind of hard to moonlight doing Q4 call for the simple reason that you are violating the ACGME regulations (one) and you are pretty friggin' tired (two).

I also think that's a nice amount of hours in which you can maintain your learning capabilities at 100%. Unfortunately, it's also a direct cause of the situation we have here; a lot of residents for (relatively speaking) not-that-many hospitals. Residents are on a day-, evening- or nightshift, for 5 days a week......if you want to stay longer than your shift takes, you're bound to do mere paperwork as you can't 'steal your fellow resident's thunder'.

While that may be a good reason for the pd and the attendings to ensure a great education in a limited amount of time, it actually turns out that many programs are unable to handle with this (that's what a rapport showed some time ago). Lowering the amount of the med students will probably be the way that the government will use to deal with this bad situation. Maybe that'll put us in the 70 hrs plus-boat like you guys in the future(Neurosurgeons and some General Surgeons are the only ones who make that amount - including home call.).

But back to the topic at hand. You spoke about Q4-call........I already mentioned that we work with a 'night float' here, and residents are very well compensated for it. Do you guys also get a good bonus for each night?

 

[Winged Scapula]

did someone say burrito?

Yes and lateness said "burriots" which must be some new form of Mexican food!

 

[Winged Scapula]

But back to the topic at hand. You spoke about Q4-call........I already mentioned that we work with a 'night float' here, and residents are very well compensated for it. Do you guys also get a good bonus for each night?

Most residents are not paid any extra money for call - the salary is a flat rate, regardless of whether you take in house call or not (ie, I made the same as the urology residents who only took in house call as interns) and regardless of how often you took call. I have heard rumor of some getting extra for call, but this is not common, at least in the surgical fields. Then again, neither is things like signing bonuses, relocation allowances, meal cards, etc.

Some programs do use night float, but again, in the surgical field, you are not compensated extra for it, and you miss out on cases during the day, but still have to go to mandatory lectures and conferences. So it blows, IMHO.

 

[Idiopathic]

Dont forget about benefits. I have excellent benefits, much better than any Taco Bell employee. Probably adds 15K a year to my salary.

 

[Hernandez]

It would be really great if they would take the time to make some gorditas for those residents that are working 80 hours and don't have time to go to Taco Bell. Perhaps it could be part of a burrito elective? ;-)

 

[8744]

Dont forget about benefits. I have excellent benefits, much better than any Taco Bell employee. Probably adds 15K a year to my salary.

The only really tangible benefit I get is health insurance. I pay 53 bucks a month for my family and it is not bad. But the cost is only acutally 350 bucks a month of which the hospital kicks in most. At duke, my health insurance was 700 or so a month of which I paid 350.

Oh, and I eat for free and that's worth maybe five thousand a year...except if I didn't have it it would be worth nothing as I'd just brown bag it. So it's not money that effects me that much. I'd rather have the five grand.

 

[Apollyon]

What used to irritate me at Duke was that, each year, they'd send out a "benefits summary", and would count malpractice insurance paid as a benefit. As it is required by the ACGME, it is NOT a benefit, and, as I've said before, if a program is claiming malpractice paid as a resident benefit, they're short on things to claim as true benefits.