Use of Sick days/PTO/Conference days etc

[shoenberg3]

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Some programs have good number of sick days (upto 2 weeks) and also academic days/conference days (some program offer 5+ days for each of these per year).

How are these treated during residency? I am hearing different opinions that range from considering sick days as de facto vacation days to only using them when you are extremely ill. I am applying to psych, if that matters at all.

Can we use these days to travel to a different state (e.g. for academic days, if you were ostensibly doing CME or Step 3 stuff)? I am asking because I will most likely have to do residency away from California and I would like to visit my aging parents frequently if possible.

Thank you for your advice.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

I think you will find this is very program and schedule dependent. Some programs will let you take a "personal day" for any reason. Others will limit them to sickness or other specific issues. Also remember that residency is a job - missing a day may require that other people do the work you would have been assigned.

 

[HemeOncHopeful19]

If you call in sick and then post social media photos of yourself at a concert or visiting out of state family/other similar event it will not go over well with your department. Depending on how clear it was I would not be surprised to retroactively count that as vacation time instead of sick days.

When I was chief we had someone ask if they could extend their trip for a conference a few days to visit family. Dude was otherwise a hard worker so I think we did rearrange stuff to give him one “extra” day but I would not give him everything he asked for because it would mean calling someone in to do extra ICU calls which is BS.