radiology residency question

[Beckie]

I know everyone has asked this question so many times, but I wanted to ask it again for an update.

What is the work schedule like for a diagnostic radiologist during residency?

I saw a post recently where someone said that they work about 8 hours and then someone else said that you work up to 60-70 hours a week. Very confusing.

I checked out FREIDA and it said that the average was 50 hours a week. Is FREIDA misinformed or am I?

Thank you for any information on this.

Take care,
Beckie

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[Docxter]

There is a wide variation in number of hours in radiology residency based on the institution you work, your year of residency, whether there is a night float system in place, and the rotation you are doing.

I'll give you an example of our place. For example, at my place everybody works a minimum of 9.5-10 hours a day, 7:00 or 7:30 - 5:00, though some of that time is conference time. Some rotations you stay a little later till 6:00-6:30. On our more difficult rotations like neuro or IR, we often are in the hospital till 8:00 or 10:00PM. At one of our affiliated hospitals (three months during the four years), we some days may get lucky and be able to leave at 3:30 or 4:00. When we are doing night float or working at one of our affiliated hospitals, we work about 84-88 hours a week, and thus we are not allowed to do more than two weeks now with the 80hr week limit (to average it out to under 80hrs for the month). There are multiple other weekend call, CT, US, and MRI call schedules that would also add to the above working schedule.

The PGY-2 and PGY-5 people have the least hours on call. The worst year is the PGY-3 year. Over the course of the four years, I would say at my place it averages 60-61 hours a week, about 54-55hrs for the PGY-2 and PGY-5 years, 68-70hrs for the PGY-3 year, PGY-4 slightly less than PGY-3, vacation time not included. But again, it's widely variable between institutions. The FRIEDA hours are not very helpful. You have to specifically ask each program.

 

[Beckie]

Hi Docxter

Thank you so much!! You are so helpful!! I really appreciate it. You helped clear things up for me.

Take care,
Beckie

 

[samsoccer7]

Hey Docxter... What are your weekends like? I guess I don't really mind my hours during the week, but I dislike having to come in every weekend. I don't know how surgery and medicine residents do it, they have to be here every weekend for at least one day. That would drive me nuts. From what I understand, weekends in radiology are usually free unless you're on a specific rotation (IR and angio I would imagine) and you're not on call.

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

It varies by year here as well.

Daily duties are 7:30 - 4:30 (including conference). Some busy rotations like CT body you stay till 5-6pm. Most others you leave before 5. Interventional is the notable exception and can be much later. So most days are about 9-10 hours. Make the minimum week 50 hours.

Now you add call, which varies by year:

R-1: Short call only. This means we stay to in the hospital to 9:30pm on average once every 6 days and once every 6th weekends (we do full weekends 12hours a day). So if you have one weekday call that and extra 5 hours, totalling 55 hours in one week. If you have a weekend call that adds 2 X 12 hours.

Overnight call starts in R-2 year in october. You stay overnight, usually very little sleep. Leave around 9-10 am in the morning after staffing out the cases. That adds about 8 hours once you subtract the next day off. Weekend call is all day and night start at 8am and go to approx 9am the next day. Saturday is probably the roughest call and adds over 24 hours the the week, bringing it to 79 hours. Sunday call is a little better since you get Monday off and only add 16 hours the week.

R-2: Average 1 call every 10 days.
R-3: Average 1 call every 12-15 days.
R-4: Total of 12 calls, mostly pre-February to allow studying time for boards.

Getting averages is pretty hard do the different kinds of call and differing frequencies.

edit: For samsoccer: weekends are off unless on call.

 

[Docxter]

Originally posted by samsoccer7
Hey Docxter... What are your weekends like? I guess I don't really mind my hours during the week, but I dislike having to come in every weekend. I don't know how surgery and medicine residents do it, they have to be here every weekend for at least one day. That would drive me nuts. From what I understand, weekends in radiology are usually free unless you're on a specific rotation (IR and angio I would imagine) and you're not on call.

The weekends are as busy as hell. The same goes for night call. There is no "downtime" like surgery or medicine when on call. I don't think any of our residents have ever been able to get even a single hour of sleep when on call. But the good thing is it's a nightfloat system. As for the weekends that you are not on some kind of call (whether general call, CT call, MR call, etc.), you have the day completely off with no beeper responsibility.

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

Cuts,

I would say most rotations it is more laid back than medicine at my institution. The vast majority of the time I take a 30 minute lunch, some rotations I can take an hour lunch without a problem. Some busy days on CT body, ultrasound its a quick 15 minute lunch, rarely while working. The daytime flow can get busy at times but there is definitely a more collegial atmosphere with discussions on cases, teaching, showing eachother interesting and difficult cases. Overall, I'd say my days are much better than when I was doing medicine when the amount of work never seemed to end. Our medicine residents are often here until 6-7 pm on weekdays. No rounding on weekend mornings is also a definite bonus.

 

[Jim Picotte]

I think most people are fairly surprised when they see the hours we work. I was a bit surprised myself. At our institution we start most rotations at 8 a.m. and 2-3 days a week there is a morning conference that starts at 7a.m. and everyday we have a noon conference. We usually get out between 4-5p.m. depending on rotation and of course angio, they're there all the time.

Then there is call. We have baby call as well for first years which is from 5p.m. until 10p.m. Because there are 8 of us this year, it's about q8. On weekends we have call both Saturday and Sunday, but it's not ER call so it's usually from 8a.m. until 2p.m. so not too bad.

The 2-4th years take the same 5p.m. till 10p.m. call in the ER and then they have 8a.m. untill 8p.m. on weekends. We also have night float which is from 10p.m. until 8a.m. on weekdays and from 8p.m. untill 8a.m. on the weekends for a week. This is split up between everyone so it's not too bad.

We now have physics lectures at the end of the day 2 days a week which adds another couple of hours and this goes through summer.

Call of course is like what everyone has said, relentless and no possibility of getting any sleep. You just struggle to keep up with the volume and pray you don't miss anything huge or surgery is going to ask for a GI study during the middle of the night.

The daytime hours are pretty intense as well as there are so many studies to read but it is still not as intense as those medical or surgical days. Call is crazy, but luckily it isn't q4 so you survive and it's not that bad. I love the specialty, but always have to smile when I hear clinicians say..."wow, you're still here, though all radiologists are gone by 3p.m." Wish it were that way, but we're essential and the hours aren't going to get shorter. You won't be working many 80 hour weeks and I think my average week is between 50-65 hours depending on how much call I have. We get weekends off if we're not on call as well.

We're so busy that some rotations you just feel like you're rushing to get the work done. I can only think of a couple times where our case load was low enough for me to open up a textbook and read during the day. Most of the time you're just trying to get the work done. I'm on outpatient body CT right now and they'll be about 40 CT's sitting in the box when I get there. Monday's are always the worst. I'm at a clinical program so maybe those at academic places have a bit more time but I hear that everyone is getting killed by volume these days.