UNLV Surgery

[steven1174]

Hey folks...just looking into surgery residencies...anyone know much about UNLV's program? I hear its small and trauma heavy....anyone know about the environment there? residents happy?

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[Plinko]

Hey folks...just looking into surgery residencies...anyone know much about UNLV's program? I hear its small and trauma heavy....anyone know about the environment there? residents happy?

Funny that this post is up today. I was just getting ready to ask a question regarding this program. I am here at Univ of Nevada-LV on Trauma Surgery on a fourth year visiting elective--my medical school is not Univ of Nevada. Why, you might ask, am I doing a Trauma Surgery elective on my last month of medical school? Short answer is because apparently I am a *****. In truth it is because I matched at a General Surgery program that is a level one trauma center and was concerned because I had no exposure to trauma in my third or fourth year of medical school. Before I got here they told me I would have "some trauma call as a fourth year" and have to attend daily SICU rounds. When I got here they put me on 30 hour overnight call (6AM to Noon the following day) every third day and a daily schedule of 6AM to 6PM with one day off a week. Apparently, this is the same schedule all the third years are on who are doing their core rotations. Essentially, I am scheduled to work over 100 hours a week. It is a 600 bed hospital with only 15 surgical residents (they take 3 categoricals per year and seemingly a lot prelims that apparently all come from the carribean medical schools) to handle the surgical load of the entire hospital. My question is: does this schedule seem excessive for a fourth year doing his/her final rotation in medical school? I do like Trauma and the people here are nice so I'm probably making it out to be worse than it is. But I've never heard of a fourth year who is not doing a sub I and who is on a his/her elective month doing this kind of thing so late in medical school. Does anyone other than myself find this a bit odd. Apparently no one here does.

 

[Celiac Plexus]

Funny that this post is up today. I was just getting ready to ask a question regarding this program. I am here at Univ of Nevada-LV on Trauma Surgery on a fourth year visiting elective--my medical school is not Univ of Nevada. Why, you might ask, am I doing a Trauma Surgery elective on my last month of medical school? Short answer is because apparently I am a *****. In truth it is because I matched at a General Surgery program that is a level one trauma center and was concerned because I had no exposure to trauma in my third or fourth year of medical school. Before I got here they told me I would have "some trauma call as a fourth year" and have to attend daily SICU rounds. When I got here they put me on 30 hour overnight call (6AM to Noon the following day) every third day and a daily schedule of 6AM to 6PM with one day off a week. Apparently, this is the same schedule all the third years are on who are doing their core rotations. Essentially, I am scheduled to work over 100 hours a week. It is a 600 bed hospital with only 15 surgical residents (they take 3 categoricals per year and seemingly a lot prelims that apparently all come from the carribean medical schools) to handle the surgical load of the entire hospital. My question is: does this schedule seem excessive for a fourth year doing his/her final rotation in medical school? I do like Trauma and the people here are nice so I'm probably making it out to be worse than it is. But I've never heard of a fourth year who is not doing a sub I and who is on a his/her elective month doing this kind of thing so late in medical school. Does anyone other than myself find this a bit odd. Apparently no one here does.

This is the difference between the "pre-80 hour" types, and the "post-80 hour" types. There was no 80 hour post-call world when a lot of here were in medical school. So working 100-120 hour weeks as a medical student probably doesn;t seem odd to a lot of folks. Nowadays, it does seem odd since the residents themselves are only supposed to work 80 hours per week.

So to answer your question: no it does not seem odd to me. But if I were a medical student today, I would probably think it was odd.

Best of luck in your training.