To those in your clinical years: how much time per week of work?

[111111111111111]

Hi, I'm just a pre-med, but I was wondering how much time med students spend doing school work. Do you guys generally have time to pursue other interests such as research and/or community work?

I've heard that 3rd year is especially bad when it comes to workload and sleeplessness.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[djmcheme]

There is generally time to masturbate if that's what your asking?

 

[Ischiowhat]

"research or community work." lol. If i have time to pursue other interests it is spent drinking or sleeping, often successively.

 

[J ROD]

I here there is time to sleep....some.

 

[hot sauce]

You will work a lot. The problem with the poll is it varies depending on your service. There were a few weeks that I spent more than 80 hours/week in the hospital (and even more if you count time spent studying and reading up for the next day). On the other hand there were times were my clinical duties were well under 40 hours/week. Most of the time I didn't really count the hours. You work until the work is done and study until you are comfortable enough with the material.

Of course if you are worried about 3rd year don't forget to consider the work of being a resident.

 

[vicinihil]

it depends heavily on the school. At my school, student take no overnight calls while at others, they take Q3 or Q4 depending on the service and the schedule of the resident. You do a week of OB night float but the hours are the same but just at night. There is variability on the service but most of the time you work 8-10 hours per day M-F with an occasional Saturday or Sunday but that's just to show up for rounds then they usu let you peace. Only on surgery thus far have I worked passed 60 hours in a given week. So far it's been alright.

The reason to NOT work 10-12 hours a day is purely because what you need to know to pass and do well on the shelves most likely will be learned in a review book and it's almost impossible to study on the floors with the amount of chatter and constant random conversations. You need to strike a good balance between getting a good eval but not LOOKING like a slacker and getting enough time to study on your own.

 

[drizzt3117]

I would say OB/GYN was probably about 65 hours a week on average, hours were about 530-7 m-f with one weekend day every 2 weeks, but the 2 weeks of outpatient brought the average down a bit. Peds so far has been a little easier, 6-430 m-f with q5 call, call is just an additional 6.5 hour ed shift if it's on a weekday and 9 hour shift if it's on a weekend. I guess that's about 60 hours per week on average. The only rotations that have known decent hours are fam med and psych.

 

[BigRedder]

As others have said, it varies a lot, but there is often dead time on the floors when you can get in a little studying, especially if there is a room you can go to. As long as there isn't floor work and other people know where you are, it isn't frowned upon to study.

 

[2012mdc]

As others have said, it varies a lot, but there is often dead time on the floors when you can get in a little studying, especially if there is a room you can go to. As long as there isn't floor work and other people know where you are, it isn't frowned upon to study.

This is very program dependent but our residents encourage us to study. If there's nothing to do on the floor then they expect us to be reading or doing questions. Sometimes they will even take the time to do questions with us. The Surgery shelf is notoriously hard in their minds and they want everyone to do well.

As far as time probably 60-70 hrs/week at the hospital and whatever studying I can manage outside. 1st and 2nd yr your time is very program dependent (I had gross lab till 4 or 5 1st yr, some schools barely dissect at all) and it depends on how much class you skip

 

[Doctor246853]

There is generally time to masturbate if that's what your asking?

If it wasnt time for that the male dropout rate would soar.

 

[BigRedder]

If it wasnt time for that the male dropout rate would soar.

Time isn't provided, time is made.

 

[Disinence2]

Some Med schools don't do overnight call?

 

[alwaysaangel]

Very dependent on the school. At worst I'd say 60-80hrs/week.

Depends on the service, school and where you are. East coast is typically worse with more overnight call and more making med students do "scut."

As far as overnight call - I would be really surprised if there were schools with no overnight call...

We don't have much. On medicine you do q5 long call with your team. On surgery we do 3 overnight calls during our 8 week rotation. On OB we do 1 week of nights and 2 weekend 30 hr calls. On peds we do 1 week of nights and 2 30 hour calls.

Could have been worse.

 

[Kaustikos]

Time isn't provided, time is made.

Why not **** the nurses?

 

[drizzt3117]

I think call is pretty cool for med students on some service and totally useless on others. I loved night float on ob. My brother (surg resident) generally immediately sends his med students home when he's done with his work for the night bc it's pointless to have them sleep in the hosp if there's nothing to do.

Very dependent on the school. At worst I'd say 60-80hrs/week.

Depends on the service, school and where you are. East coast is typically worse with more overnight call and more making med students do "scut."

As far as overnight call - I would be really surprised if there were schools with no overnight call...

We don't have much. On medicine you do q5 long call with your team. On surgery we do 3 overnight calls during our 8 week rotation. On OB we do 1 week of nights and 2 weekend 30 hr calls. On peds we do 1 week of nights and 2 30 hour calls.

Could have been worse.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I've been topping 70 pretty easily for the last 2 months, but that's looking to slow down a tad for the next month then pick up again for 6 weeks during gyn. After that, it should be more like 50-ish, from what I understand.

 

[EpicBearMan]

One doctor I shadowed told me that between time spent in the hospital and time studying the books, she had multiple triple-digit hour weeks during her surgery rotation in med school. This was about 10-12 years ago though.

I'm curious, how often are current med students hitting the triple digits?

 

[MeRLin443]

Why not **** the nurses?

You don't want to **** any nurse who's nice enough not to **** you, b/c if you **** them and then **** them over, then they might **** you, and then you'd be ****ed, because- they can ****ing ruin your day.

 

[Hurricane95]

depends greatly on the service.

my general surgery rotation had me working around 80 or more hours per week.

my slackest service was probably outpatient psychiatry, at around 25 hours per week.

big variability.

 

[TarHeelEMT]

It depends on the rotation and whether or not you count studying time. Not counting studying, psychiatry for us is probably the lowest at around 50 hours per week on average. Surgery and medicine push the 80 hour limit.

 

[Parts Unknown]

it depends heavily on the school. At my school, student take no overnight calls while at others, they take Q3 or Q4 depending on the service and the schedule of the resident. You do a week of OB night float but the hours are the same but just at night. There is variability on the service but most of the time you work 8-10 hours per day M-F with an occasional Saturday or Sunday but that's just to show up for rounds then they usu let you peace. Only on surgery thus far have I worked passed 60 hours in a given week. So far it's been alright.

Wow, I didn't realize UVA treated its students like such delicate flowers.

 

[alwaysaangel]

One doctor I shadowed told me that between time spent in the hospital and time studying the books, she had multiple triple-digit hour weeks during her surgery rotation in med school. This was about 10-12 years ago though.

I'm curious, how often are current med students hitting the triple digits?

At my school its pretty common for fourth year students doing Sub I's in surgery. Otherwise, I've never really heard of it.