Intern Blues - whats it really like?

[turkdlit]

So I'm reading that "Intern Blues" book which highlights the lives of 3 pediatric ER residents through their journal entries. Like some have said on this board, its kinda scary sounding (100 hrs/week, lucky if you get like, 2 hours of a leep some nights).

I mean, is this accurate nowadays? I know it depends on your residency, but say you're doing ER, how many hours do you work a week, realistically? Does it completely consume your life as they say? Can some current or recent residents shed some light on this...

Thanks!

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[jlee9531]

i see no reason why they would lie....

im not a resident or anything but i have no reason not to believe it...esp. for something that can be high action like ER medicine....esp in a busy hospital/city...

 

[toomuch]

Maybe you should post this in one of the residency forums. Emergency medicine does sound like it's pretty hectic, but they did just pass that law(I don't think it was state only), maxing a residents work week to 80/week. Unfortunately, this law has made some of the longer residencies even longer, but changing from 9 to 10 years may not seem like that much to some.

 

[SilleAngyl]

Originally posted by turkdlit
So I'm reading that "Intern Blues" book which highlights the lives of 3 pediatric ER residents through their journal entries. Like some have said on this board, its kinda scary sounding (100 hrs/week, lucky if you get like, 2 hours of a leep some nights).

I mean, is this accurate nowadays? I know it depends on your residency, but say you're doing ER, how many hours do you work a week, realistically? Does it completely consume your life as they say? Can some current or recent residents shed some light on this...

Thanks!

I think the key here is that these are PEDIATRIC ER residents, not straight ER. I have done a lot of lurking in the ER forum and it seems that the general concensus in there is that the ER residency is about 55-65 hours per week. This is not to say that a straight ER residency is not hectic, I am sure that it is, but I believe the hours are just less than a peds ER program.

 

[twinklz]

I've heard from quite a few people to just avoid that book because its depressing (I guess the title could give that away, though). I've only read his other book "Learning to Play God" and that wasn't exactly encouraging either. Residency is hard-- a "trial by fire"--but this author seems inordinately depressed IMO.

You probably will have times when you have to work as much as these folks but freaking out about it now won't help (at least thats what I'm telling myself)

 

[topherius]

well...a couple of things to keep in mind about The Intern Blues. It was first written in the 1980s, and lots of things have changed since then. Hours are better and people in general are paying more attention to quality of life for residents. (Like that regulation--not a law, as someone said, it's actual a reg from an accreditation group--that residents can't work more than 80 hours a week.)

I have a couple of friends who are matching in ER right now, and in fact one of the main reasons they are going into ER is that it has less strenous hours. You work like 4 or 5 12-hour shifts a week. The really rough residences are surgery and medicine, from what I hear. And the people in Intern Blues, I think, were actually peds residents, not pediatric ER residents (you'll notice they talk about things like ICU duty, outpatient stuff, etc), so their residencies were probably more like a traditional medicine residency than they were an ER residency. That's just my read on it, of course...

the other thing you have to keep in mind is that we don't really know the people doing those diaries. That one woman Amy, she struck me as already being a little high-strung, plus she had a <1 year old baby, which would make things even tougher. As with many things, their experience is not necessarily representative of everyone's experience.

but that still doesn't mean residency isn't a real piece of crap sometimes...