Interview days for Jobs or Fellowships

[dchz]

Out of curiosity, how many days do people out there typically get for interviewing for jobs or fellowships during residency?

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[TheLoneWolf]

In residency none. Used your vacation days or got comp day for working on a holiday.

In fellowship 3 days outside of vacation time.

 

[jthedestroyr]

In residency none. Used your vacation days or got comp day for working on a holiday.

In fellowship 3 days outside of vacation time.

And I thought our program was rough. We actually get professional days if you didnt use sick time. They do make an effort but like not other departments do (off site rotations make a stink though).

 

[TheLoneWolf]

And I thought our program was rough. We actually get professional days if you didnt use sick time. They do make an effort but like not other departments do (off site rotations make a stink though).

No distinction. Your vacation days were also your sick days. 20 days off per year. I think it's an acgme requirement that it's not more than that.

 

[deleted875186]

My program is 20 days for everything, sick, vacation, personal. We got one day to study for the ITE as a first year.

 

[DM27]

Talking to others when I was on the interview trail it varied widely. Some people had to use vacation days or sick days, others were in programs where the only way to get single days off was to be post call. Others had more understanding programs that would simply give them the day off for an interview as long as it wasn't too egregious (similar to meeting days).

The standard seemed to be vacation days.

 

[anbuitachi]

thats a difference between programs, some programs give you 20 vacation days (purely vacation), sick days, and off days. off days for things like interviews. i think they go by the honor system and just assume you dont abuse it. i think most people take like 5 off days for interviews in CA3

 

[deleted171991]

Out of curiosity, how many days do people out there typically get for interviewing for jobs or fellowships during residency?

5 as a CA-3, which came out of my vacation time.

 

[DM27]

Out of curiosity, how many days do people out there typically get for interviewing for jobs or fellowships during residency?

I realized I did not answer your original question. The time I was given was essentially "infinite" assuming it was not abused, and did not come out of my vacation time. I benefited from applying for a cardiac fellowship and being one of three people to do so (one was staying internally) so our loss from the schedule was not as major as during the fellowship interview rush for Peds/Pain/Regional....Ob? For those individuals it did not come out of their vacation time, but they had a stricter process regarding scheduling.

 

[jthedestroyr]

I realized I did not answer your original question. The time I was given was essentially "infinite" assuming it was not abused, and did not come out of my vacation time. I benefited from applying for a cardiac fellowship and being one of three people to do so (one was staying internally) so our loss from the schedule was not as major as during the fellowship interview rush for Peds/Pain/Regional....Ob? For those individuals it did not come out of their vacation time, but they had a stricter process regarding scheduling.

My fellowship is completely different then my residency, with very much an honor system, but the environment is also much better here(anesthesia department is respected and has most money).

 

[Mman]

No distinction. Your vacation days were also your sick days. 20 days off per year. I think it's an acgme requirement that it's not more than that.

you are correct that it is an ACGME requirement

 

[anbuitachi]

you are correct that it is an ACGME requirement

its an ACGME requirement that sick days are vacation days?? where ?

 

[Mman]

its an ACGME requirement that sick days are vacation days?? where ?

it's an ACGME requirement that you can't miss more than 20 days in an academic year or you have to make it up

 

[anbuitachi]

it's an ACGME requirement that you can't miss more than 20 days in an academic year or you have to make it up

i thought that rule has been changed already.

 

[Mman]

i thought that rule has been changed already.

changed when and to what? I have never heard of that rule even being considered to be changed. It's why residents that have a baby and go out on maternity leave have to stick around after their class graduates June 30th and work for a few more weeks/months.

 

[anbuitachi]

changed when and to what? I have never heard of that rule even being considered to be changed. It's why residents that have a baby and go out on maternity leave have to stick around after their class graduates June 30th and work for a few more weeks/months.

id have to look it up, i do know that every year someone in my class gets pregnant, then take FMLA leave and none has had to stay past 6/30.

 

[DM27]

I spent some time trying to look this up. I found no documentation within the ACGME common program requirements, the ACGME anesthesia requirements, or any document that mentioned anything about more than 20 days in a year. There are long dead links to two SUNY upstate medicine sites that appear to reference this but there’s no documentation. The advisements given for Family Medicine ACGME are that it’s the at individual program directors discretion to make a decision regarding “prolonged” absences and if additional time is required.

I can say that from my experience, and that of a few residents I know who had children during residency, people were not forced to make up time lost beyond that covered by vacation/sick time.

In addition, one of the ACGME documents I found that obliquely references vacation does not even guarantee 20 days but instead leaves it to “state and institutional policies”.

Until I can find documentation proving otherwise, I will assume that it’s individual program directors discretion.

 

[AdmiralChz]

it's an ACGME requirement that you can't miss more than 20 days in an academic year or you have to make it up

Yes, this was the case when I was in training. The ABA has changed to this policy...

The American Board of Anesthesiology - Policies/BOI

60 total days off between CA-1 and 3 (I think allows more than 20 in any 1 year, but will need to decrease days off in other years). Meetings DONT count toward these days! But of note, the ABA is not the ACGME so I don’t know how they line up exactly.

Individual programs vary a LOT on this - on the trail I encountered people getting time off for 10+ fellowship interviews (typically they were chiefs who tipped the schedules in their favor) and then others who had to scrap and scrounge for each interview day. For us we had a 5 day flex to use between a conference or interviews if we liked (only 15 days formalized vacation each year, along with 5 sick days).

I was able to work my ICU schedule to basically work 18 days straight and have an entire week off to go on 3 interviews which cost me nothing in my vacation pool... that was a highly unusual and lucky situation few get to take advantage of. Most of my co-residents used a week of vacation for fellowship interviews.

In fellowship I had already secured a job beforehand but interview days came out of your 4 weeks of vacation/sick which were combined.

 

[deleted171991]

i thought that rule has been changed already.

Was it upsetting the residents?

 

[jthedestroyr]

Doesn't apply retroactively, only to incoming ca1s.

 

[chocomorsel]

id have to look it up, i do know that every year someone in my class gets pregnant, then take FMLA leave and none has had to stay past 6/30.

I remember taking a LOA for a month in residency and only had to stay over two days. I believe I had already taken time off that year.
I think there is a cumulative number over the entire residency from what my evil PD told me. ABA requirement.
But don’t know for sure.

 

[IlDestriero]

We were supposed to use vacation time during fellowship, but they would give me the wink and a nod and assign me an academic day if I asked. Fly out in the evening Thursday, interview Friday, dinner, fly back Sat. I made a week long interview trip to the opposite coast to do a 3 in 1. That was vaca.

 

[deleted697127]

Rules are guidelines. Obviously there is going to be variation. Programs clearly vary drastically on call volume and work hours leading to a natural discrepancy in total numbers of days worked between programs over the course of a residency. It’s not surprising that some programs may choose to and are sufficiently staffed to grant an extra day for any number of circumstances. Just don’t expect to be treated any differently than is standard for your program. The majority of residents make it through residency without needing to ask for special treatment. People will notice if you can’t seem to schedule your dentist appointments on a post call day, your flights are getting delayed, and all your interviews require long weekends.

 

[DM27]

Rules are guidelines. Obviously there is going to be variation. Programs clearly vary drastically on call volume and work hours leading to a natural discrepancy in total numbers of days worked between programs over the course of a residency. It’s not surprising that some programs may choose to and are sufficiently staffed to grant an extra day for any number of circumstances. Just don’t expect to be treated any differently than is standard for your program. The majority of residents make it through residency without needing to ask for special treatment. People will notice if you can’t seem to schedule your dentist appointments on a post call day, your flights are getting delayed, and all your interviews require long weekends.

An unfortunate...or fortunate coincidence is that many Cardiac and ICU programs offer predominantly Monday and Friday interview days (presumably because of a "built in" travel day).