Question about Medical School/Residency Lifestyle

[jjmusicman29]

I'm sorry I couldn't really seem to get this answered in my thread about what my chances are.

What is lifestyle like in medical school? Is it really like 0-4 hours of sleep every night, no social life, etc? I'm a chemical engineer so I arguably am in one of the hardest undergraduate majors available, but I get 7 hours of sleep most nights with some good time management. I really can't handle getting 0-4 hours of sleep most nights, I would break/crack. I have tried, but really. I don't like pulling all nighters, I only did one last semester. I do everything within my power to avoid those situations by managing my time fiercely. My health isn't that great and if there's no reasonable way to finish medical school without living a healthy lifestyle with decent sleep, exercise, and food possible to time management then I seriously doubt I'd be able to do it. People make it sound like it's impossible to live a lifestyle that isn't just 19 hours studying/at the clinic all day. I don't know if I could do that lifestyle even if the science of medicine interests me so much. In that case I might want to do a graduate degree in biomedical engineering of sorts instead of going to medical school, since I could study the fascinating science of the body in a different way.

Thanks your help!

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[DoktorO]

Manage your time well and medical school and residency wont hurt you. If you study with facebook open and text messaging you will have problems.

 

[BlueLabel]

Sounds like your pledgeship was too easy.

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

There are multiple threads on this forum about the study schedules of medical students. Most of them aren't studying every waking moment and get adequate sleep and time for hobbies. All bets are off in residency though, depending on the specialty and program.

 

[mvenus929]

You will definitely get more than 4 hours of sleep most nights. But there will be nights when you're on call that you won't get any sleep, and may have to function for up to 30 hours without sleep. At least, that's how things stand now.

Interns currently cannot work more than 16 hours straight, which means you'll have 8 hours to eat, sleep, study, and do whatever else you need to do in a day. Which means you probably won't get 7 hours of sleep per night, but you should definitely manage more than 4.

 

[Perrotfish]

I'm sorry I couldn't really seem to get this answered in my thread about what my chances are.

What is lifestyle like in medical school? Is it really like 0-4 hours of sleep every night, no social life, etc? I'm a chemical engineer so I arguably am in one of the hardest undergraduate majors available, but I get 7 hours of sleep most nights with some good time management. I really can't handle getting 0-4 hours of sleep most nights, I would break/crack. I have tried, but really. I don't like pulling all nighters, I only did one last semester. I do everything within my power to avoid those situations by managing my time fiercely. My health isn't that great and if there's no reasonable way to finish medical school without living a healthy lifestyle with decent sleep, exercise, and food possible to time management then I seriously doubt I'd be able to do it. People make it sound like it's impossible to live a lifestyle that isn't just 19 hours studying/at the clinic all day. I don't know if I could do that lifestyle even if the science of medicine interests me so much. In that case I might want to do a graduate degree in biomedical engineering of sorts instead of going to medical school, since I could study the fascinating science of the body in a different way.

Thanks your help!

Lifestyle by year:

The first two years of medical school are just school, you learn things from textbooks. The amount of time you put in has to do with the grade you want out of it and your natural ability to learn the material, just like in Undergrad. I think most people average 40-60 hours a week, though you will certainly meet people that put in 20 hours a week and people who put in over a hundred.

The third year of medical school sucks. You have tests every 4- 8 weeks you need to study for, as well as a clinic/hospital schedule that can be anywhere from 10-100 hours a week depending on the whims of your rotation. Some schools do med student call and literally don't let you sleep for up to 36 hours at a time, something that won't be legal again until fellowship. Its very school and rotation dependent.

The fourth year of medical school is a joke. The first half is filled with electives without tests that you don't go to because you're traveling for interviews, the second half is electives without tests that you do go to for maybe a couple hours a day. Most people work less than 40 hours a week for most of them and less than 20 hours a week for at least one or two.

Intern year is a maximum of 80 hours a week in the hospital, no more than 16 hours in a given day, and at least one day off a week. You would also be nuts not to put in another 10-20 hours of studying/ admin/ research outside of the hospital. How hard it is depends on the program, most people average over 60-80 hours a week in the hospital. My year long average was about 75 hours a week. You sleep but not much else.

The rest of residency is a maximum of 80 hours a week in the hospital (88 if you're a surgeon), no more than 28 hours at a time, and enormous variation in how hard it actually is. Some specialties are easier than others and some programs are easier than others. I know surgeons that routinely break the work hour rules throughout all of residency to average 100 hours a week. I think I'm going to be closer to 50 hours a week on average, maybe even less. It is possible to do 'Q4' call within the rules, if you do that your schedule is: 12 hour shift, 12 hour shift, 28 hour shift. Rinse and repeat. Then you really don't sleep every fourth night.

Fellowship has no work hour rules and enormous variation in work hours. In some malignant/competitive medicine and surgery fellowships 110 hours a week is not unheard of, and that can go for years. In many pediatrics fellowships less than 40 hours a week is not at all strange.

Most attendings who aren't drowning in debt or alimony seem to work a very reasonable number of hours: 30-60 depending on preference.

Summary: There are only two years that definitely need to suck: Third year and Intern year, and even then you should sleep at least 7 hours a night most nights. The rest of residency and fellowship CAN suck depending on what kind of doctor you want to be, so choose wisely.

 

[mimelim]

I wrote this as an intern:

I sleep 5.5 to 6 hours a night, but I have always slept that much and would be sleeping that much even if I wasn't a resident. I would say that it is hard to guarantee more than 7 hours of sleep, but for the most part, except when on call (most places, every other weekend or once a month), it isn't hard to get that 7 hours if you need it. My typical schedule is as follows:

4:00 Wake-up, brush teeth, eat a yogurt, play with the cats for 2-3 minutes
4:15 Start running to hospital (~2 miles)
4:30 Shower
4:45 Meet with night float team to find out who they admitted overnight or what issues there were
5:00 Chart check all the patients on service (25-40 patients), update the list, identify issues that need to be dealt with and prepare for rounds
6:00 Round with the fellow
7:00 Run through the team list with the nurse practitioner
7:30 - 5:00 Cover the floors, morning is mostly discharges and dealing with overnight things, afternoon is mostly consults and ER patients. If things are slow and the NP has everything under control, I'll slip into the OR. We typically have 5-6 ORs running, so it is always easy to find someone who can use extra hands.
5:00 sign out the service pager to the night team
7:00 leave the hospital (between 5 and 7 finish seeing consults, taking care of post op patients etc)
7-10 - me time, I rock climb three times a week, but for the most part those hours are reading for cases the next day, research, preparing presentations etc.

You have the hours to sleep. I burn ~30 minutes every day running to the hospital and needing to shower at the hospital. I choose to climb a couple times a week. I also make sure that I read at least a little bit every day. The question is what your priorities are outside of the hospital.

This is tremendously variable. We may be capped at 80 clinical hours, but we have mandatory research requirements and strongly recommended academics/meetings that easily put most people at 100 hours a week. I also work a lot more as a PGY2 than an intern.

 

[Mel Belle]

I wrote this as an intern:




This is tremendously variable. We may be capped at 80 clinical hours, but we have mandatory research requirements and strongly recommended academics/meetings that easily put most people at 100 hours a week. I also work a lot more as a PGY2 than an intern.

I have plenty of time until I'm at that level, but I just wanna let you know that I appreciate you sharing this.