Students and Holidays?

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HopefulDoc1984

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Are students on 3rd and 4th year rotations asked/expected to work on major holidays like thanksgiving and christmas?

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I think it's pretty school/hospital/attending specific. I've never worked on a major holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Easter) because my base hospital just gives students those days off:D. I have worked on little holidays like Valentine's Day, St.Patricks Day, Halloween.
Also, at MSUCOM, we get two weeks off over Christmas/New Years.
 
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I think it's pretty school/hospital/attending specific. I've never worked on a major holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Easter) because my base hospital just gives students those days off:D. I have worked on little holidays like Valentine's Day, St.Patricks Day, Halloween.
Also, at MSUCOM, we get two weeks off over Christmas/New Years.

A LOT of med students work labor day, memorial day, easter and a lot of schools/hospitals don't consider any of those amongst the "major holiday"s. Thanksgiving is hit or miss and lots of people who get that day off will be working the following day. I've never heard of a med student who didn't get the xmas to new years week off.
 
There are usually levels (if you will) of vacation...for instance, some holidays/vacation are recognized by the school and hospital like xmas/winter break and summer break. Other holidays are recognized by the school, and may or may not be by the clerkship/attending like thanksgiving, easter, labor day, memorial day. Finally, others that no one recognizes like halloween, st. pattys day, etc...
 
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I am working over winter holday as an ms4, as I missed a bunch of time for interviews.
 
I've never heard of a med student who didn't get the xmas to new years week off.

Well, now you have. My DO school doesn't have a winter break of any kind.

We do get Xmas Day and New Year's Day off. In third year my resident told the students not to come in Christmas Eve, either, but that wasn't official policy.

ETA: For 3rd and 4th years, I mean. 1st and 2nd years do get a winter break.
 
Well, now you have. My DO school doesn't have a winter break of any kind.

We do get Xmas Day and New Year's Day off. In third year my resident told the students not to come in Christmas Eve, either, but that wasn't official policy.

ETA: For 3rd and 4th years, I mean. 1st and 2nd years do get a winter break.

wow - that's pretty hardcore.
 
This year (third year), we got Thanksgiving Day off but not the Friday after. Most of the third years take two weeks off for Christmas/New Years, although we can opt to do an elective for those two weeks if we want.
 
We get holidays if on outpatient service, no holidays on in patient service. 3 weeks off for christmas though, pretty sweet.
 
when I was a MS3/4 we'd get 1 day for Thanksgiving and 2 for Christmas. they didn't have to be given on the actual holidays. MS3 I worked Thanksgiving and had a very nice attending that gave me off a few days for Christmas. MS4 I manipulated my schedule to be on clinic rotations where the offices would be closed, giving me the holidays off.
 
For third year get July 4th (if it's not on a weekend) and Thanksgiving off guaranteed. One rotation ends like December 20th and restards like January 3rd so you get Christmas and New Years off (and no shelves to worry about, thank God).

Fourth year, all bets are off and you can pretty much schedule yourself to work on Christmas or New Years if you want. However, I'd say there are only a few "hardcore" rotations that'd make you work...and nobody schedules those in December anyway because everyone wants rotations that gives you days off for interviews.
 
Depends on the school...We got off for Thanksgiving weekend and for 2 weeks for xmas break. We might as well enjoy it now b/c it will change in a year or so.
 
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To my knowledge, we are totally at the whim of our attending we are spending the month with as to whether we "go to work" or not.

I'd kill for the 2 weeks off. I've got the rest of my life to work holidays. In many ways, MS is worse than "real life".
 
My school doesn't provide two weeks for Christmas/New Year's in the 3rd and 4th years. I second the "entirely attending-dependent" response about the holidays. I was lucky enough to manage 5 days for Christmas, but some other unlucky souls worked the holiday. I personally had to work Thanksgiving and Labor Day.

Wouldn't it be nice if we DID get off for Halloween and St. Pat's?
 
we get 2 weeks off during our 3rd year cores scheduled in. I did some time at an army base and the military LOVES long weekends, so the clinic I was working at was closed on some of the big holidays (and the occational training day). Other than that it depends on the rotation you're on. An inpatient AI, probably not... outpatient clinic without hospital call, probably more likely to have off.
 
We get the entire thanksgiving weekend off, thurs-sun. We also get 2 weeks off for christmas and new years that is fixed into everyone's schedule regardless of rotation. Every other holiday during the year is not guaranteed. No one comes in during our break unless, of course, they want to shadow and kiss ***** or something.
 
At UAB Thanksgiving is dept/team dependant as to whether you work. I was on family at that time and the office was closed, so I was off. I don't know what percentage of the class got off, but I know plenty of people were on.

We also had 12/13 thru 12/28 off, that time is built into our 3rd year schedule for a winter break. In addition to those 2 weeks, some depts chose to delay starting the block until 1/5. Note that they didn't OFFSET the course an additional week, they simply scratched that week off, making an 8 week rotation = 7 weeks, a 4 weeker = 3 weeks, etc. I don't know how I feel about that really, but I've enjoyed my extra week, gotten some reading done, gotten some housework done, and in exchange I'm losing a week of OB clinic.... I'm not crying into my cereal at 11am breakfast over this :) But if they'd taken a week of inpatient away from me I might have been annoyed :)
 
I got the shaft for Thanksgiving - all the people on outpatient peds got the entire Thurs-Sun off, but all the people on inpatient had to come in on Thursday and Friday for rounds (so we left after ~5 hours), and I was on call Sunday, so I came in then too. Oh well. We got a pretty big Christmas break because Christmas and New Years are on a Thursday, so I'm off from the 24th til the 5th.

We had Labor Day off, but only because it was on the first weekend, so the rotation didn't start until Tuesday. The office people aren't going to come in to do our orientation on Labor Day.
 
We get about 1 week of for Christmas M3 year. M4 year, it's dependent upon the rotation, but we have no guaranteed Christmas break. I was on ambulatory medicine in December, so I got the 24-26 off, and I had to be back at work on the 29th and 30th. I was given the 31st off.

On inpatient rotations, major holidays are usually treated as weekends, so there's typically no clinic (some rotations have clinic and inpatient), no scheduled OR cases, etc. So like the Prowler said, you basically come in to round, and if you're on a surgical rotation, you'd go to any cases that came in over night if they're still waiting to go.
 
A LOT of med students work labor day, memorial day, easter and a lot of schools/hospitals don't consider any of those amongst the "major holiday"s. Thanksgiving is hit or miss and lots of people who get that day off will be working the following day. I've never heard of a med student who didn't get the xmas to new years week off.

We got X-mas eve and day off then New Years eve we got out at noon and had the day off. Besides those days we were expected to be on duty.
 
I made sure to schedule an outpatient rotation for the holiday season and it worked out. The attending took days off and closed the office for his staff to spend time with family so the students were all off too. I'm going to do the same this coming year :)
 
I guess my school is nice because we have official holidays where we are guaranteed the day off -- it's not at the discretion of the attending or clerkship director. So far, we've gotten off labor day, one day for fall break, 3 days for thanksgiving (wednesday through friday) and 2 weeks for winter break. I believe some students who failed Step 1 had to do a selective during winter break, but I'm guessing they probably got off Christmas Day and New Years since the clinics would be closed, and selectives are generally all outpatient. It looks like MLK and Memorial Day are also official holidays, and July 4 is built into vacation time for both MS3s and MS4s.
 
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We have 12 4 week rotations. This gives us 4 weeks of built in 'vacation' to our 3rd and 4th year. This includes 3 full weeks from 20-ish Dec to ~10 Jan both years. The fourth week comes at the end of the year.

Also, all major holidays are off for med students (incl 4 day Thanksgiving weekend - convienently falls at the end of a 4 week block so they just end the rotation at 5PM on Wed, and the next one starts on Mon).

I just asked for MLK off as my wife is working and our kid's day care is closed. I was told by the course director that the med school already mandates we get that day off. Bonus.

Don't get me wrong - we bust our humps while on rotations. It's just nice to know the school recognizes this and has set up a system to give us built in down-time to recover.
 
Third year we have 5 days off. Depends on the site how they are given - 1) assigned all in a chunk, 2) pick random days, or 3)they are at the end of the year. If the attending tells us to take the day off though (because they won't be there and/or they are just on call), pretty sure everyone agrees and doesn't put up a fight and insist on being there.
 
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