M3 Lifestyle

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fnsweet said:
Just wanted to get a feel of what third year is like. I haven't talked to any medical students about this and wanted to hear what your experience was like.

During 3rd year:

< 1. Average hours of free time per week >
< 2. Average hours of sleep per week >
< 3. Number of shifts per week that are greater than or equal to 18 hours >
< 4. Most amount of hours on duty at one time >
< 5. Average happiness 1 through 5 (1 being completely unhappy, 5 being very happy) >

Thank you for your responses! 🙂
Click to expand...

This varies immensely from something like gen surgery to psych.

On average, discounting surgery and OB, which are nuts:

1. I try to spend an hour or so, listening to my iPod or reading a book. Or on here. But some days you are just too tired to study at all.
2. During weekdays you get 6-8 hours a night. Unless you are on call, where you may be up all night.
3. Um.... 0-1? They shouldn't give you too many calls.
4. 30 Hours, post call plus morning rounds.
5. About a 4. Not every rotation is fun, and it IS hard. But also several kinds of awesome. You'll love it.


If you want, I can PM you a message I sent to a friend, telling her exactly what IM was like.
 
Agree that it is very dependent on rotation. Will try to give ranges...

1. I had plenty of hours in the day and weekend. Most on psychiatry (leave at noon each day), least on general surgery (in at 545a, out 6p) I chose to spend most of those studying or doing other research projects. But certainly I had enough time to cook dinner and exercise. Less so on my OBGYN rotation which was at a community hospital (40 minute drive each way).

2. I like to sleep. 7-8 hours even on surgery and OB.

3. This depends on how your school does call. Not a lot. Worse are the black weekends where you're there Saturday, post-call Sunday, and then come back Monday. That second monday (and second friday) are real pains.

4. "Technically" 30 hours as previously stated. I never stayed more than 26 or so. [not so for surgical sub-Is but those are different beasts than MS3]

5. Psychiatry: 1. 👎 IM: 2. 👎 General Surgery, ER: 4. 👍 Peds, Surgical Specialties: 5. 😍
 
DocDanny said:
This varies immensely from something like gen surgery to psych.

On average, discounting surgery and OB, which are nuts:

1. I try to spend an hour or so, listening to my iPod or reading a book. Or on here. But some days you are just too tired to study at all.
2. During weekdays you get 6-8 hours a night. Unless you are on call, where you may be up all night.
3. Um.... 0-1? They shouldn't give you too many calls.
4. 30 Hours, post call plus morning rounds.
5. About a 4. Not every rotation is fun, and it IS hard. But also several kinds of awesome. You'll love it.


If you want, I can PM you a message I sent to a friend, telling her exactly what IM was like.
Click to expand...

I'm almost done with MS2 and I'd love to see this message if you get a chance 😀
 
WashMe said:
I'm almost done with MS2 and I'd love to see this message if you get a chance 😀
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that this is for IM, coming from a guy who wants to go into IM. But a couple folks wanted to see, so I thought I would post it.

"For Internal Medicine, we get there at 7 AM for morning report, where we go over how our patients did throughout the night. We get assigned two patients to follow throughout the day. Then we have a morning lecture/case study. This goes till 8:15 and is educational, because they lecture on stuff like how to work up GI bleeds or manage nausea.

The next thing to do is to see your patients. You see them by yourself, one on one!!! So first you do some research on your patient, based on the Physician Computer Report we have access to, which prints off lab results, their list of medications, and plenty of room to write on. Then you look up radiology and additional test results, admission report, H & P, and so on, then you go talk to them!

It usually takes a half hour or more, because we are slow. Then you write a SOAP note, which I am sure you are familiar with. Subjective stuff is like how their symptoms are, how they feel, etc, then the O lists pertinent labs, like my gal had anemia, so I wrote down CBC, PT/PTT and BMP. Plus radiology, EKG, and an Echo, and so on.

Plus the physical exam findings you do. It isn't the whole exam. I just do General, Cardiac, Pulmonary, Abdominal and Legs. The legs are important because Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is a big problem in bed ridden patients who have heart or lung problems, recent surgeries, cancer, or are old or obese (basically everyone). The best part of that is getting to use all the acronyms, like CTAb stands for clear to auscultation bilaterally. s/nt/nd/+bs stands for an abdominal exam which is soft, nontender, nondistended with bowel sounds. Everyone understands the jargon. You save time. Plus there is a way to write out CBC and BMP results in an easy to remember table.

The A and P are your problem list for the patient for the day. Like what they came in with. So a patient with renal failure might also have diabetes, headaches, hypertension and pain too, and might also need DVT prophylaxis and nausea prophylaxis, and also need help paying for meds. So all these go on the problem list, then you write down how they are to be treated! Like a person with the hypertension, you say if it is stable, and what level it is that day. Then the meds they are on, and dosages, and say to continue if acceptable,
or recommend an increase. We put "consider this or that" because we arent official.

So for my patient, number 4 looked like this.

4. HTN- Patient 156/108 this morning. Consider adding HCTZ to CCB.
-Monitor vitals
-Consider U/S for Renal Artery Stenosis secondary to kidney dz.

Or say that their ascites needs an ultrasound guided paracentesis. Then you get to SIGN the note, and IT GOES IN THEIR CHART FOREVER! Nobody listens to it, but its THERE, and the doctors DO read it, to evaluate us and to see what the patient said, because we may have picked up something!!

Like today my one patient had severe leg pain that the resident missed but I found, so I mentioned it could be DVT and we checked it. It was nothing to worry about, but still, I helped.

And the interns will help you with note writing. So you get better.

Then we round. During rounds we either do Walking Rounds for a few hours, or have Sit Down Rounds, or both. And the Chief Resident and the Attending will try to "pimp" you on your notes, where they ask you question after question after question. Like if a patient has Diabetic Ketoacidosis, he'll ask who else has ketoacidosis besides diabetics. Answer: Alcoholics. And what the cut offs are for stage I and II Hypertension.

And they make all these suggestions about how to add more stuff. Yesterday the attending gave two of us an impromptu exam, and told us to listen to a patient's heart and lungs and report what we found. I got it right!!! He has a Mitral Regurgitation Murmur and coarse Right lung Rales! Sometimes you get something wrong, like in terms of a dosage question (I hate pharm) or a diagnostic point, but its ok because we are LEARNING!

The afternoon is lectures, presentations, and studying. And lunch, where we eat our free food and complain about how our feet hurt and chill out. Some of this is us working on the rounds presentations and lectures WE have to give to the teams, like on why we give heparin for DVTs.

Then maybe study, see another patient. Leave at 5, after sign out.

Calls are great too. You help with the initial work up in the ER and admit them, and do the H&P."
 
fnsweet said:
Just wanted to get a feel of what third year is like. I haven't talked to any medical students about this and wanted to hear what your experience was like.

During 3rd year:

< 1. Average hours of free time per week >
< 2. Average hours of sleep per week >
< 3. Number of shifts per week that are greater than or equal to 18 hours >
< 4. Most amount of hours on duty at one time >
< 5. Average happiness 1 through 5 (1 being completely unhappy, 5 being very happy) >

Thank you for your responses! 🙂
Click to expand...

1. Free time per week. Most services unless on call on saturday (and thus sunday) give us a light weekend. So 5 full days + 1/2 day or so. I'd say I have 3-4 hrs at night from when I get home on Surgery/OB till bed (~10). Back up at 4-5 based on service. Medicine is more 7-6 or so, IE not bad at all.
2. Sleep, I don't normally get a ton. I'm a 6 hr a night and I'm fine guy so this hasn't really been a problem for me. If you're a 9 hr, you'lll be screwed on a busy service
3. 18 hr shifts? OB we had 24 hr calls, Q3. Surgery we had those calls, but we weren't on a Q schedule. So I'd say few 18 hrs.
4. I did 35 hrs on surgery once. Most times were at the 30.
5. Happiness 5+/5. Being a 3rd year is great. Variety, lots better than being in the library. Even on services you hate.
 
DocDanny said:
Keep in mind that this is for IM, coming from a guy who wants to go into IM. But a couple folks wanted to see, so I thought I would post it.
Click to expand...

Only about 20% of this is applicable to the IM rotation I experienced. Needless to say, school-to-school variation is significant - for every rotation, I would imagine.
 
IHeartNerds said:
Only about 20% of this is applicable to the IM rotation I experienced. Needless to say, school-to-school variation is significant - for every rotation, I would imagine.
Click to expand...
Not only is school to school variable, but even at the same hospital its completely resident dependent.

I have the most amazing resident/intern team ever. If there's nothing to be done for the afternoon I'm excused to leave (even if it's 1pm). They don't make me sit around waiting for *something* to happen (because they're realistic that it's not a good use of my time for learning).

Some of my collegues with different residents have to stay til 4-5pm and they just sit there on the floors with the resident while they dictate their discharged patients into the phone. They don't give the MS3 any work to do and there's nothing to be done, but they just require that they keep them company while they dictate.
 
xanthomondo said:
Actually when charts are sent to medical records after a patient is discharged the MS3 notes either get ripped out and trashed (if they're on their own paper) or they get black-markered out.
Click to expand...

This must vary hospital to hospital, I did a chart-review study last summer and remember there being a TON of M3 notes in the patients permanent MR.
 
DocDanny said:
Keep in mind that this is for IM, coming from a guy who wants to go into IM. But a couple folks wanted to see, so I thought I would post it.

"For Internal Medicine, we get there at 7 AM for morning report, where we go over how our patients did throughout the night. We get assigned two patients to follow throughout the day. Then we have a morning lecture/case study. This goes till 8:15 and is educational, because they lecture on stuff like how to work up GI bleeds or manage nausea.

The next thing to do is to see your patients. You see them by yourself, one on one!!! So first you do some research on your patient, based on the Physician Computer Report we have access to, which prints off lab results, their list of medications, and plenty of room to write on. Then you look up radiology and additional test results, admission report, H & P, and so on, then you go talk to them!

It usually takes a half hour or more, because we are slow. Then you write a SOAP note, which I am sure you are familiar with. Subjective stuff is like how their symptoms are, how they feel, etc, then the O lists pertinent labs, like my gal had anemia, so I wrote down CBC, PT/PTT and BMP. Plus radiology, EKG, and an Echo, and so on.

Plus the physical exam findings you do. It isn't the whole exam. I just do General, Cardiac, Pulmonary, Abdominal and Legs. The legs are important because Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is a big problem in bed ridden patients who have heart or lung problems, recent surgeries, cancer, or are old or obese (basically everyone). The best part of that is getting to use all the acronyms, like CTAb stands for clear to auscultation bilaterally. s/nt/nd/+bs stands for an abdominal exam which is soft, nontender, nondistended with bowel sounds. Everyone understands the jargon. You save time. Plus there is a way to write out CBC and BMP results in an easy to remember table.

The A and P are your problem list for the patient for the day. Like what they came in with. So a patient with renal failure might also have diabetes, headaches, hypertension and pain too, and might also need DVT prophylaxis and nausea prophylaxis, and also need help paying for meds. So all these go on the problem list, then you write down how they are to be treated! Like a person with the hypertension, you say if it is stable, and what level it is that day. Then the meds they are on, and dosages, and say to continue if acceptable,
or recommend an increase. We put "consider this or that" because we arent official.

So for my patient, number 4 looked like this.

4. HTN- Patient 156/108 this morning. Consider adding HCTZ to CCB.
-Monitor vitals
-Consider U/S for Renal Artery Stenosis secondary to kidney dz.

Or say that their ascites needs an ultrasound guided paracentesis. Then you get to SIGN the note, and IT GOES IN THEIR CHART FOREVER! Nobody listens to it, but its THERE, and the doctors DO read it, to evaluate us and to see what the patient said, because we may have picked up something!!

Like today my one patient had severe leg pain that the resident missed but I found, so I mentioned it could be DVT and we checked it. It was nothing to worry about, but still, I helped.

And the interns will help you with note writing. So you get better.

Then we round. During rounds we either do Walking Rounds for a few hours, or have Sit Down Rounds, or both. And the Chief Resident and the Attending will try to "pimp" you on your notes, where they ask you question after question after question. Like if a patient has Diabetic Ketoacidosis, he'll ask who else has ketoacidosis besides diabetics. Answer: Alcoholics. And what the cut offs are for stage I and II Hypertension.

And they make all these suggestions about how to add more stuff. Yesterday the attending gave two of us an impromptu exam, and told us to listen to a patient's heart and lungs and report what we found. I got it right!!! He has a Mitral Regurgitation Murmur and coarse Right lung Rales! Sometimes you get something wrong, like in terms of a dosage question (I hate pharm) or a diagnostic point, but its ok because we are LEARNING!

The afternoon is lectures, presentations, and studying. And lunch, where we eat our free food and complain about how our feet hurt and chill out. Some of this is us working on the rounds presentations and lectures WE have to give to the teams, like on why we give heparin for DVTs.

Then maybe study, see another patient. Leave at 5, after sign out.

Calls are great too. You help with the initial work up in the ER and admit them, and do the H&P."
Click to expand...

The length of this post sounds about right...:laugh:
 
lazymed said:
The length of this post sounds about right...:laugh:
Click to expand...

I don't get it.😕

Like I said, I really liked IM.

And when we auctioned off our cycles, I spent all my points getting into a good hospital for IM where we could do stuff.
 
DocDanny said:
I don't get it.😕

Like I said, I really liked IM.

And when we auctioned off our cycles, I spent all my points getting into a good hospital for IM where we could do stuff.
Click to expand...

IM is notorious for really long notes with tons of information, whereas surgery tends to be on the other end of the spectrum. Not good or bad, but just illustrates the different personalities that are attracted to each specialty. I remember sitting there while some internists were talking about the differential for some guy and what they needed to do. They were discussing this for long enough that I just decided my time was better invested zoning out and staring at a wall. When we all parted ways, I asked one of them what the difference in treatment was and got a reply somewhere along the lines of, "Oh, there isn't any real difference in treatment....just wanted to figure out what it was."
 
fnsweet said:
Just wanted to get a feel of what third year is like. I haven't talked to any medical students about this and wanted to hear what your experience was like.

During 3rd year:

< 1. Average hours of free time per week >
< 2. Average hours of sleep per week >
< 3. Number of shifts per week that are greater than or equal to 18 hours >
< 4. Most amount of hours on duty at one time >
< 5. Average happiness 1 through 5 (1 being completely unhappy, 5 being very happy) >

Thank you for your responses! 🙂
Click to expand...

The answer is going to be rotation dependent (surgery is a lot more hours than something like psych), and is going to depend on the policies of your med school -- at some places the med students take overnight call, others have to go home at 11 or don't take overnight at all. At some places the med students have to abide by the 80 hour work week, at others they don't. Given these constraints:

1. On a heavy rotation (surgery, inpatient IM, OB), you may be working an average of 6 days a week, with a total of hours in the ballpark of 70-80 hours/week. You probably will do 1-2 overnights a week. On top of that you may be asked to present topics by the attendings for which you have to prepare at home, and you have to study for a shelf exam at the end of the block. However much free time you have after all that is yours.

2. On the heavier rotations I slept between 5-6 hours a night, except call nights. On the lighter rotations if you didn't get 8 hours of sleep a night it was by choice.

3. On heavier rotations you probably have overnight call twice a week that would be greater than 18 hours. Up to this past year, up to 30 hour call was the norm. It remains to be seen how long med students are kept now that interns can't do 30 hour shifts. But there are no external rules protecting you guys, just a given hospital's own policy, if any.

4. Most amount of hours at a time as a med student, for me, was 30ish hours. Usually overnights during med school were closer to 25.

5. Happiness? I would say this is rotation dependent, hospital dependent, resident dependent, attending dependent, and maybe even dependent on the given patients you were carrying. On average probably netted out to a 3.
 
that sounds pretty crappy compared to most med schools. Q4 call? Med schools tend to be easy on their students now... our surgery call is q14 haha.


Law2Doc said:
The answer is going to be rotation dependent (surgery is a lot more hours than something like psych), and is going to depend on the policies of your med school -- at some places the med students take overnight call, others have to go home at 11 or don't take overnight at all. At some places the med students have to abide by the 80 hour work week, at others they don't. Given these constraints:

1. On a heavy rotation (surgery, inpatient IM, OB), you may be working an average of 6 days a week, with a total of hours in the ballpark of 70-80 hours/week. You probably will do 1-2 overnights a week. On top of that you may be asked to present topics by the attendings for which you have to prepare at home, and you have to study for a shelf exam at the end of the block. However much free time you have after all that is yours.

2. On the heavier rotations I slept between 5-6 hours a night, except call nights. On the lighter rotations if you didn't get 8 hours of sleep a night it was by choice.

3. On heavier rotations you probably have overnight call twice a week that would be greater than 18 hours. Up to this past year, up to 30 hour call was the norm. It remains to be seen how long med students are kept now that interns can't do 30 hour shifts. But there are no external rules protecting you guys, just a given hospital's own policy, if any.

4. Most amount of hours at a time as a med student, for me, was 30ish hours. Usually overnights during med school were closer to 25.

5. Happiness? I would say this is rotation dependent, hospital dependent, resident dependent, attending dependent, and maybe even dependent on the given patients you were carrying. On average probably netted out to a 3.
Click to expand...
 
fnsweet said:
During 3rd year:

< 1. Average hours of free time per week >
< 2. Average hours of sleep per week >
< 3. Number of shifts per week that are greater than or equal to 18 hours >
< 4. Most amount of hours on duty at one time >
< 5. Average happiness 1 through 5 (1 being completely unhappy, 5 being very happy) >
Click to expand...

1. Many rotations get out around 5 (sometimes 3:30, sometimes 7, let's call it five) and I generally go to sleep ~11, which means if I'm rounding at 5 AM I will get less sleep than if I come in at 8. That translates to maybe 5-6 hours each evening to do personal stuff and study. More of that time is studying if I am within a week or two of a shelf exam. Weekends usually I either have off or work one shortened day, depends on the rotation.
2. Close to 7/night, less on early rounding days. Maybe around 49 hrs/wk, but less on more intense rotations.
3. Generally 0, that is pretty uncommon at my school.
4. I think something like 16 hours (early morning to around 10 PM) is the longest I have done, it was a call day. Usually I manage to cut some time off the end of that because most residents are cool about these kind of things.
5. On surgery: 2/5. On family medicine, psych, outpatient med or peds: 4-5/5. For me the kind of work I am doing during the day makes a tremendous difference, and once start times creep much earlier than 6 AM I start getting irritable.
 
MossPoh said:
IM is notorious for really long notes with tons of information, whereas surgery tends to be on the other end of the spectrum. Not good or bad, but just illustrates the different personalities that are attracted to each specialty. I remember sitting there while some internists were talking about the differential for some guy and what they needed to do. They were discussing this for long enough that I just decided my time was better invested zoning out and staring at a wall. When we all parted ways, I asked one of them what the difference in treatment was and got a reply somewhere along the lines of, "Oh, there isn't any real difference in treatment....just wanted to figure out what it was."
Click to expand...

pretty much sums up medicine rounds for me...
 
lazymed said:
Not sure you can generalize... you should talk to students at other med schools...
Click to expand...

I have good friends or family members at about 30 schools, seems like a decent sample.
 
lazymed said:
Not sure you can generalize... you should talk to students at other med schools...
Click to expand...

We don't take any call on general surgery. And we're required to leave at 6pm. Guess there are some perks to paying $60,000 a year 🙄
 
MossPoh said:
IM is notorious for really long notes with tons of information, whereas surgery tends to be on the other end of the spectrum. Not good or bad, but just illustrates the different personalities that are attracted to each specialty. I remember sitting there while some internists were talking about the differential for some guy and what they needed to do. They were discussing this for long enough that I just decided my time was better invested zoning out and staring at a wall. When we all parted ways, I asked one of them what the difference in treatment was and got a reply somewhere along the lines of, "Oh, there isn't any real difference in treatment....just wanted to figure out what it was."
Click to expand...

That sounds so cool. I'm not even kidding.

The point about diffferent personalities is spot on. So far the generalizations people make about the residents in different fields has been pretty spot on. That should mean good things for me since I start Peds next week.
 
IHeartNerds said:
We don't take any call on general surgery. And we're required to leave at 6pm. Guess there are some perks to paying $60,000 a year 🙄
Click to expand...

I'm a very naive MS1 (so take what I say with a grain of salt) -- but I guess I wouldn't look at this as a positive. Even though I have an idea of what I want to go in to, I'd rather get a total perspective of the residency than work a weird short schedule and not get as much of a feel for it.

Like others have said, I think it's very hospital dependent. At our hospital (probably partly as a function of having a huge # of patients and relatively few medical students), most services assign you to an intern and you're expected to work the same hours they do. You take call with the team and get days off with the team.

That said, some rotations are definitely lighter. Psych is supposedly 9-to-5. OB here is worse than surgery -- med students are supposed to be in the hospital for gyn-onc by 4A. Again, not speaking from experience, just from word of mouth.
 
sanityonleave said:
I'm a very naive MS1 (so take what I say with a grain of salt) -- but I guess I wouldn't look at this as a positive. Even though I have an idea of what I want to go in to, I'd rather get a total perspective of the residency than work a weird short schedule and not get as much of a feel for it.
Click to expand...

Not me. I can watch what the residents and interns go through. I will have to do my years of it later whether I work their schedule now or not, and no amount of overworking myself now will make me be fine without sleep during those upcoming years. I say let's keep the number of years where we live like interns/residents to the lowest number we can!

Besides, I have studying to do.
 
Yakko said:
Why? Are they required to watch late night infomercials in the call room before pre-rounds?
Click to expand...

I did GYN-ONC for my inpatient OBGYN and we had to get there early b/c you needed to preround, round, and manage floor patients. After that you were usually admitting a patient because a majority of procedures are elective so you need an admission H&P and then anesthesia needs to examine the patient- some hospitals will take the clinic H&P for this and others won't, but everyone still needs to examine for anything new between clinic and surgery. All this happens before 8am surgery start time. The 4a is probably to err in the side of caution, as in it's better to be there early and have time for a tater tot break than get there at 7a and have no flexibility in your morning to address any unforeseen urgent stuff. Hours were long and patients sometimes depressing but the staff were amazing and let students do a lot in the OR.
 
sanityonleave said:
I'm a very naive MS1 (so take what I say with a grain of salt) -- but I guess I wouldn't look at this as a positive. Even though I have an idea of what I want to go in to, I'd rather get a total perspective of the residency than work a weird short schedule and not get as much of a feel for it.
Click to expand...

*nothing* will give you an adequate perspective for a residency in general surgery. Even a Sub-I at most places. People who apply have an idea of what they're getting into because they've talked with a lot of residents, not because they did some rotation that enlightened them. To a degree, this is true for all residency programs.

Our course director made the change a few years back because she realized students actually needed to study for the shelf exam ... realizing rightly that general surgery teaches you very little testable knowledge when in the OR or on the floor.
 
IHeartNerds said:
*nothing* will give you an adequate perspective for a residency in general surgery. Even a Sub-I at most places. People who apply have an idea of what they're getting into because they've talked with a lot of residents, not because they did some rotation that enlightened them. To a degree, this is true for all residency programs.

Our course director made the change a few years back because she realized students actually needed to study for the shelf exam ... realizing rightly that general surgery teaches you very little testable knowledge when in the OR or on the floor.
Click to expand...

Perhaps that's fair, though I'd make the argument that you would garner a better perspective from actually doing the legwork for 6 weeks during your rotation rather than going home at 6. I think your point is valid, though, that the best way to get an idea about residency is to talk to current residents.

I have heard from several recent grads that the surgery shelf was a total bitch since they didn't have any time to study, it covers a huge breadth of material, and the rotation doesn't prepare you at all for the exam -- so definitely a disadvantage of the "hardcore" surgery rotation that seems to be favored by our program.

yakko said:
Why? Are they required to watch late night infomercials in the call room before pre-rounds?
Click to expand...

No idea -- just what's printed in our handbook for the wards. Mattchiavelli's explanation makes sense to me.
 
sanityonleave said:
Perhaps that's fair, though I'd make the argument that you would garner a better perspective from actually doing the legwork for 6 weeks during your rotation rather than going home at 6. I think your point is valid, though, that the best way to get an idea about residency is to talk to current residents.

I have heard from several recent grads that the surgery shelf was a total bitch since they didn't have any time to study, it covers a huge breadth of material, and the rotation doesn't prepare you at all for the exam -- so definitely a disadvantage of the "hardcore" surgery rotation that seems to be favored by our program.

No idea -- just what's printed in our handbook for the wards. Mattchiavelli's explanation makes sense to me.
Click to expand...


My school is still pretty hardcore when we are on surg rotations and I had no problem with the shelf at all. We did 5:30a - 6p on weekdays and 1-2 30 hour calls while on trauma, 4:30a - 7-8p while on CT surg (no call/weekends). I think the difference is that out surg faculty and residents are excellent
teachers and are constantly bringing up shelf relevant material while we were in the OR and rounding. And I learned a ton in the trauma bay and admitting gensurg patients in the ED in the middle of the night. I really dont know how I could have decided that I really did want surg if I hadnt gone over 80 a few times.
 
drizzt3117 said:
that sounds pretty crappy compared to most med schools. Q4 call? Med schools tend to be easy on their students now... our surgery call is q14 haha.
Click to expand...

LOL. Actually I think part of my surgery rotation was q3 call. I think a lot of places have cut things back now that so many residencies have moved to night float systems. We had q4 for IM and OB. Something like q5 for peds. I think there is a benefit of a med school that makes you at least take some call so you can see what's what -- a lot of things happen at night that you don't get to see/do during the day. One hospital where I've rotated as a resident didn't keep their med students overnight and they were comparatively pretty clueless as to what residents really do and seriously unprepared for what's to come in their residencies. So no, I wouldn't call it crappy (agree with psipsina above -- with the long hours comes a lot of benefit) -- wouldn't have changed that aspect of med school at all. Then again as a career changer I get kicks out of some aspects of the education because it's so different.
 
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