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kto12

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I'm a pathology applicant this year who is looking at both MGH and BWH, and I'm curious -- is the workload similar? Old threads suggest that MGH residents used to work a bit harder than BWH residents, but there are one or two comments saying that's outdated. Can anyone compare the current hours residents typically work on surg path at each place? Thanks.

This is my first time using SDN and I don't fully understand the etiquette yet, so sorry if this is a duplicate thread...it's just that all of the pertinent threads appear to be from years ago.

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duplicate threads are only allowed if they are about how bad the job market is, sorry. try to integrate that theme into your post the next time.
 
Holy crap crawl into a "safe space" somewhere..

You WANT to work hard as resident. You want to work your butt off, see a ton of cases, become hardened and competent. Feel beat down, oppressed, disgruntled, bitter, underpaid and unappreciated.

That is literally the experience of being a resident physician.

I worked about 80+ hours as resident. Training is such a minuscule part of your entire career arc you need to use it every day of it to your advantage.
 
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The vibe I always got from those two places is both were great places to train but BWH was more the place for research-oriented MD PhDs. I used to hear that MGH was like residency boot camp where people barely slept, ate dinner and went back to previewing until midnight each night only to wake up at 6am and get to grossing. But that was from some old school former MGH trainee, so who knows what conditions are like now. Hopefully there's a current resident from or two out there from either or both programs that could PM you.
 
Holy crap crawl into a "safe space" somewhere..

You WANT to work hard as resident. You want to work your butt off, see a ton of cases, become hardened and competent. Feel beat down, oppressed, disgruntled, bitter, underpaid and unappreciated.

That is literally the experience of being a resident physician.

I worked about 80+ hours as resident. Training is such a minuscule part of your entire career arc you need to use it every day of it to your advantage.

I don't think I said anything about not wanting to work hard...I'm aware that people work hard at both of those programs, and I wouldn't have applied to either if I didn't expect to. I was just curious if there's any difference. My suspicion is that, if there is, it would be a marginal hour or two, like comparing 14- and 16- hour days.
 
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Hi KTO12,
Like you, I interviewed at both MGH and BWH but ended up choosing MGH for my residency training.
Here are a couple points from my perspective:
1. Indeed, I heard about how gruesome the hours are at MGH - but I thought if I want to be good at something, certain efforts are needed. That said, from my experience here, we don't work from 7am to midnight. People do have life.
2. One thing that attracts me at MGH is the interaction between the faculty members and the residents. It's a lot more casual and the attendings seem more personable. Many of the attendings are on first name basis with the residents (in fact, if you call them Dr so-and-so, they'd stop you and ask you call them by their first name). To me, I like that.
3. The interaction among the residents (and some with fellows) seems a lot closer.
4. In terms of research, it's pretty much a wash between BWH and MGH - you get to work with the same pool of researchers in greater Boston area.

Obviously, I am biased here. But as someone who's done his training at MGH, I looked back at my times there fondly. And if I had to choose again, I'd pick MGH.
 
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Can anyone compare the current hours residents typically work on surg path at each place? Thanks.

Hey kto12,

Current MGH resident here.

On surg path, I would say I work 12 +/- 2 hours on any given day or service.

Your daily schedule starts out with sign out that usually goes from 8 am to noon, regardless of service, and our unknown conference (monday-wednesday and friday) and grand rounds (usually every thursday) from noon to 1 pm.

After conference, your grossing is generally about 2 to 4 hours of work, depending on the service (bone and soft tissue grossing, for example, may take longer). The PAs and a more senior resident dedicated to supervising the gross room are there to help you with your questions and approach to cases, so that speeds things up.

Then, your previewing should be about 2 hours.
I like to come in the mornings to do my previewing, when my eyes are fresher, and that way I get my evenings off and I get a life (like TC said)

Let me know if you have any more questions!
 
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Hey kto12,

Current MGH resident here.

On surg path, I would say I work 12 +/- 2 hours on any given day or service.

Your daily schedule starts out with sign out that usually goes from 8 am to noon, regardless of service, and our unknown conference (monday-wednesday and friday) and grand rounds (usually every thursday) from noon to 1 pm.

After conference, your grossing is generally about 2 to 4 hours of work, depending on the service (bone and soft tissue grossing, for example, may take longer). The PAs and a more senior resident dedicated to supervising the gross room are there to help you with your questions and approach to cases, so that speeds things up.

Then, your previewing should be about 2 hours.
I like to come in the mornings to do my previewing, when my eyes are fresher, and that way I get my evenings off and I get a life (like TC said)

Let me know if you have any more questions!

How can you preview for 2 hours and sign out for 4 hours (8-noon)? Do your attendings do a LOT of teaching during sign out? Are you super fast?

Also during your 2 hours of previewing do you include all the other duties (ordering immunos/levels, looking at immunos that were ordered the day before etc)? All those duties can take a lot of time when you're on a busy rotation.

Thanks!
 
How can you preview for 2 hours and sign out for 4 hours (8-noon)? Do your attendings do a LOT of teaching during sign out? Are you super fast?

It's attending and service dependent. There are some attendings that will take only 2 hours. There's a lot of small talk, breaks, consults from other services, frozens (if you're on a service where an attending is covering or one where you cover your own frozens like bone and soft tissue), and teaching (general teaching points and discussion of differential diagnoses, sometimes a med student or a visiting resident/fellow sits with you).

Also during your 2 hours of previewing do you include all the other duties (ordering immunos/levels, looking at immunos that were ordered the day before etc)? All those duties can take a lot of time when you're on a busy rotation.

I don't generally order the immunos or levels--I will write down what I would order or not order just to see if I'm on the same page as the attending. Immunos that are ordered at signout come out that afternoon, so I review those and write up the case prior to the next day's sign out. It can definitely be a lot at first, but you get to be more efficient.
 
In residency we interviewed a couple of people who wouldn't stop talking about lifestyle and schedule and what time they could leave every day. Guess what - they didn't get in. They went to a second tier program.

There are work hours limits now so the differences between programs are probably less than they used to be. I would find the program where you can see the most cases possible on your own and the most variety. It's not about putting in your time and getting through the rotation - it's about seeing as much as you can, familiarizing yourself with as much as you can. Once you leave residency these opportunities are gone. It's on you now. I cannot come close to counting the number of times I have been "bailed out" in my work day by seeing something that I randomly saw a few times in residency during extra work or extra case examination or sitting in on someone else's signout when I was done. I spent every day in residency from about 6:15 to 6pm, later on certain rotations.

Pick the program that has features that will allow you to excel, whatever that is. For me it was opportunities to see lots of cases and do lots of different things, even when I was on different rotations.
 
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A hard call you have between those to places. If I could do it again I would do Cytopath at BW with Cibas.
 
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