Some context: military oral surgery residency, 4 year program with 2 residents per year. Intern on service time is at least 100hrs per week. Our call is light and so we do not take in house call and have no post call. After intern year its around 80hrs the average wk on service. Off service rotations are typically much more relaxed but can be variable. Depending on what military location you get stationed at time will be variable with some country club programs going home for dinner every night but the buy ones essentially living in the hospital and only going home a few days a month really just to sleep.
Prepare yourself for a wall of text. This is what I sent out to our incoming interns to go into the details of our schedule now:
Our schedule, in general: Monday the two chiefs are in the OR and everyone else on service is in clinic. Tuesday a chief and third year are in the OR - everyone else sees wisdom teeth sedations in the morning and their own books in the afternoon. Wednesday a chief and third year are in the OR and everyone else has their own books. Thursday morning for a couple hours is when all of the bigger surgeries come in for follow ups, that way all the staff are tracking and their is good continuity of care. From around 1000-1600 on Thursdays is academics - it’s relatively formal and we have a schedule that while it’s not kept to the minute dictates more of a to do list with the focus on cases going next week, recap of what just went this week, orthographic or implant board, pathology lecture, and maybe a guest lecture or assigned reading we usually don’t get to. Friday morning everyone is in the clinic for wisdom teeth sedations in the morning and evals for teeth in the afternoon.
Call used to be heavier but is much lighter for whatever reason this year. When interns first get here they are paired with a second year. We have a two to three person team (intern+second+chief or second+chief) with the chief being a third or fourth year. On average expect the first two years taking a week of call from Friday-Friday every other week and once every 3-4 weeks your third and fourth year. We don’t have in house call so long as you can be at the hospital within about half an hour. On average during any given week we may get called a couple times during business hours and have to come in once at night.
First year you will be on service for at least a couple months. One of the interns leave a month or two after to stagger. First year rotations are 6mos of anesthesia on site (Mon-Fri about 0600-1500 and expect a few hundred cases and meeting your whole residency goal of 50 peds <12yo anesthetics then) and two months of medicine on the telemetry ward (mostly not really sick people with 4 days 0600-1900 and one 36 hour shift with the following day and a half off). The intern time on service is very demanding with the expectation that your here before everyone else and usually the last to leave, main goal is to help others and learn to eval. Expect hours approx Mon-Fri 0500-2000 or later and about a day and a half on the weekends. Interns aren’t allowed to take leave but you’re usually off service over Christmas and they will usually be flexible with you. Second year you spend 8 months on service, one month in the ICU, one month in the ER, and two months in general surgery although you can be doing some plastics and ENT cases there. Third years as of this year are going to TX for two months of trauma rotation, while we get enough trauma here to stay accredited this is going to way boost the numbers and experience. Fourth years will go to TX for a month and do at least one month on plastics with a possible second month or other rotation.
Our OR time is spent mostly on orthognathics with 2-3 big cases the average week, then some bone grafting or implant/sinus lift cases, maybe some trauma (we don’t have neurosurgery so it’s never anything major), and then maybe something cosmetic (a few facelifts a year, occasional brow lift, blephs, a lot of otoplasties and laser skin), a bunch of minor TMJ stuff with a couple replacements each year, random biopsies, peds dentoalveolar too risky for clinic, and the super difficult teeth cases.
In clinic don’t expect to cut much as an intern, maybe 1-3 cases a week once you get back from anesthesia. Some second stage implants but mostly evals, sick call, and shadowing. Second year expect over 100 teeth sedations and 20-40 implants in clinic with some minor bone grafting allowed. Third and fourth years can do multiple implants, sinus/ramus grafting, otoplasties, TMJ washouts, really whatever they proved mastery of in the OR in clinic.
As far as the culture of our program we have very strong resident bonds and really take care of each other. It’s usually an amicable staff vs resident game when we are performing well as a group but they do start off hard when you get here. Everything is driven at you being over educated for passing boards and comfortable orally presenting. Expect a lot of long hours and stress as a junior resident, especially early days as an intern
