Vacation

[sharkbyte]

So I'm an incoming intern at an academic IM program and I got my rotation schedule a few days ago. I noticed that all my vacation weeks have been pre-scheduled for me. We got an email asking us to fill out our one "major" vacation request for the year, but otherwise, I was under the impression that I'd be able to submit my own vacation requests...

Is it typical for vacation to just be scheduled for all the residents like this? What is it like at your program?

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[Raryn]

We'd be able to put in a list of requests but nothing was guaranteed. They'd try to get you vacation around when you wanted, but if a bunch of people requested the same week, it would likely not happen. Also, the weekends on either side of any given vacation were also not guaranteed, though for vacations not in nov/dec, it was usually possible to get them.

 

[GoSpursGo]

So I'm an incoming intern at an academic IM program and I got my rotation schedule a few days ago. I noticed that all my vacation weeks have been pre-scheduled for me. We got an email asking us to fill out our one "major" vacation request for the year, but otherwise, I was under the impression that I'd be able to submit my own vacation requests...

Is it typical for vacation to just be scheduled for all the residents like this? What is it like at your program?

Yeah, everyone puts in requests but nothing is guaranteed. We got to make 3 requests in descending order of importance, and most people got 2 or all 3 of their requests.

Obviously, there are limits to what you can get. For example, you're not taking a week of vacation when you're on ICU, and not everyone can get vacation in November/December.

 

[gutonc]

In my program, interns got one 1 week vacation and 1 two week vacation. You were allowed to make a special request for the 1w block, the but the 2w block was random-ish.

I requested a week in August to go to a wedding. My 2nd block ended up being the first half of paternity leave when my daughter was born...in mid-May. I got to go back and do a block of ICU to finish off intern year (first block was also ICU). I was crispy AF when I started R2...in the CCU.

 

[hallowmann]

A lot of programs don't guarantee or really allow you to choose. For our program, there are only a certain subset of "vacation eligible" blocks, and in my intern year I had 4 blocks to choose when to take my 3 vacations (you couldn't take more than 1 week vacation per block). I basically didn't have much of a choice. Weekends weren't guaranteed, but you get 1 weekend per vacation to have "protected".

The IM residents here haVE a similar setup as gutonc's residency, one 1 week vacation and one 2 week vacation, but I think they were able to negotiate when they could have that, assuming everyone else didn't have a vacation around the same time.

 

[sharkbyte]

Thanks for the input everyone!

 

[<L>]

My program was intern year was pre-set, later years was a lot more flexible.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Yep agree with everyone else very typical. We'd get to submit vacation requests and holiday off requests (half the residency got 4 days off either Christmas or New Years while the other half cross covered the essential services) but they were just requests. Prescheduled for the whole year at the beginning of the year in 2x 2-week blocks.