vacation

[sweetsaja]

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On average, how many weeks of vacation do you get as a pgy1, pgy2, and pgy3? Are they assigned or do you get to choose when to take the vacation? Are you allowed to take extra time off if you need to?

 

[Castro Viejo]

On average, how many weeks of vacation do you get as a pgy1, pgy2, and pgy3? Are they assigned or do you get to choose when to take the vacation? Are you allowed to take extra time off if you need to?

In my General Surgery residency it's four weeks per academic year, taken as two two-week blocks. The Administrative Chief Resident decides who gets what vacation based on staffing needs for various rotations. It's a thankless job. Trust me.

Extra time? It depends on what it's for. We allow extra time off for interviews (for categorical seniors looking for fellowship or jobs, but not for prelim interns), bereavement, and personal/family emergencies. It's considered on a case by case basis by the Administrative Chief Resident.

This varies from program to program.

 

[Blade28]

3 weeks every year here.

 

[RTrain]

Three weeks a year here too, taken as 3 one-week blocks. Each spring when the chiefs are making the schedule, we can ask for months in which we would like vacation, but they aren't guaranteed. Generally for non-negotiable stuff like weddings, we can schedule one of the weeks to cover it as long as we know far in advance.

As for extra time, we get 6 total days for interviews (I'm blowing through those), and emergencies can be accomodated - one of my friends came to work with a stomach-ache one morning and ended up staying to get her appendix out, and she got a couple days off for that.

 

[Winged Scapula]

We got 3 weeks in 1 week blocks. For a few years we got the bumper weekends, but after some faculty complained, it ended up being Saturday am to Saturday am.

You can request certain weeks and the Administrative Chief would try and accomodate, but no promises.

In December we got 4 extra days to celebrate the holidays. Chiefs could attend 1 national meeting if they were presenting. We had to sell back our personal days. No extra time unless it was for an emergency or special situation (ie, surgery, bereavement, fellowship interviews, Step 3).

 

[Smurfette]

Four 1 week blocks, with restrictions depending on which service you're on at the time.
No 2 weeks in a row except for special circumstances (i.e. you are getting married or having a baby).
No extra days over the holidays.
No conferences unless given special permission from the department.
Chiefs get time off for interviews as needed.

 

[DrDawg]

3 weeks as one week blocks. Either Monday through Sunday or Saturday through Friday (you maybe be able to work it to get both). No personal days. If you are presenting at a National confrence you need permision but no one is denied unless it really is fluff. PGY5 gets one confrence or board review coarse. One week of vacation is lost for PGY4 or PGY for interviews.

 

[IndyXRT]

At IU, all PGY 1+2 residents get 3 weeks (21 days) of vacation time. PGY 3 and up get 4 weeks (28 days). Some residency programs mandate when you take this time, and some do not.

 

[TysonCook]

WOW! We get two 5 day blocks 🙁 and they can't be taken together. If we are lucky, we sometimes can get the prior or post weekend off as well, but that hasn't happened for me yet. It is also fairly difficult to get approved for any vacation (I've been denied 3 times this year already). 😡

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

WOW! We get two 5 day blocks 🙁 and they can't be taken together. If we are lucky, we sometimes can get the prior or post weekend off as well, but that hasn't happened for me yet. It is also fairly difficult to get approved for any vacation (I've been denied 3 times this year already). 😡

In all fairness though, you probably get more days off than the average resident because of the nature of EM residency. Sure when you're off service you don't but when you're in the ED I assume you get days off just because of the nature of scheduling.

 

[ekydrd]

We get 4 weeks a year here, as either 4 one week blocks or 2 two week blocks. We also get 5 days off at Christmas or New Years as a bonus, and 4 days of personal time off per year that we can use anyway we need to (with approval of course).

 

[Drawing Dead]

In all fairness though, you probably get more days off than the average resident because of the nature of EM residency. Sure when you're off service you don't but when you're in the ED I assume you get days off just because of the nature of scheduling.

Not trying to start an arguement here, but just remember, ER residents work weekends, while most other services/programs are M-F (unless of course, they are on weekend call). Plus, I know of a certain EM residency that gets 2-two week blocks a year, so 2-five day blocks sounds lame.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Not trying to start an arguement here, but just remember, ER residents work weekends, while most other services/programs are M-F (unless of course, they are on weekend call). Plus, I know of a certain EM residency that gets 2-two week blocks a year, so 2-five day blocks sounds lame.

Not to start a "specialty war" but I would beg to differ.

ACGME/RRC only states that you have to have 1 day in 7 on average off, completely free from clinical duties. And while my experience may not be the same for everyone, it is clear to me from reading these forums, that many, if not most residents in surgical specialties, IM, and Rads (and even the odd Path resident) are in house on the weekend, for at least 1 day, if not both.

Low census? Sure, maybe you'll come in and be home by late morning. But as everyone can attest, its not the same as not coming in at all. Higher census with lots of work and little allied health? You may be there all day. Some places may only require the on call personnel to come in for rounds, but IMHO that's certainly not the most common scenario (because there would simply be too much work to do for 1 or 2 people).

Outpatient specialties like FP, Derm, Ophtho, etc. do not come in on weekends unless there is an emergency consult, but in every hospital I've worked at, weekends are not automatically off (and you may not get your "1 in 7" either).

 

[Blade28]

Not trying to start an arguement here, but just remember, ER residents work weekends, while most other services/programs are M-F (unless of course, they are on weekend call). Plus, I know of a certain EM residency that gets 2-two week blocks a year, so 2-five day blocks sounds lame.

Most residency programs - with few exceptions - work at least 6 days a week, regardless of the call schedule.

 

[Pir8DeacDoc]

Not trying to start an arguement here, but just remember, ER residents work weekends, while most other services/programs are M-F (unless of course, they are on weekend call). Plus, I know of a certain EM residency that gets 2-two week blocks a year, so 2-five day blocks sounds lame.

maybe as a student you haven't been coming in on the weekends, but somebody has been there. I've never heard of a surgery service working M-F.

I'm not hating at all in terms of ER residents. I just know that where I went to med school the ED guys got plenty of time to go out, party, and vacation. Having done a month in the ED as an intern I realize those 12 hour shifts can be hell. I'm just stating that they do get time off because of the nature of their shift work.

 

[Drawing Dead]

I never said everything was M-F, but even services like surgery, you do 2 weekend days a month.

And yes, as a STUDENT, I was there.

Besides, my point wasn't to compare one specialty to another. I was only trying to say that a total of 10 vacation days sucks, no matter what specialty you are training in.

 

[RTrain]

I never said everything was M-F, but even services like surgery, you do 2 weekend days a month.

Dude, I'm not trying to quibble, but uh, yes you did:

ER residents work weekends, while most other services/programs are M-F

And pretty much everything has already been said about working weekends, but I would point out that in IM, there's not even the hope of the "golden weekend" when you have 2 days off back-to-back, since call is taken as a whole team and representatives of the team must be working every day. So your 4 days off for the month are determined as a team in advance, and they're just as likely to fall on a Tuesday as on a Saturday.

 

[pillowhead]

I never said everything was M-F, but even services like surgery, you do 2 weekend days a month.

And yes, as a STUDENT, I was there.

Besides, my point wasn't to compare one specialty to another. I was only trying to say that a total of 10 vacation days sucks, no matter what specialty you are training in.

where did you go to med school that the surgery residents only work two weekend days a month 😱

definitely atypical.

 

[gutonc]

I never said everything was M-F, but even services like surgery, you do 2 weekend days a month.

I just got off a medicine ward month and did 8/8 weekend days (my 4 days off came on weekdays). My surgery colleagues were around as well. Not sure what kind of program you're in but I should have looked at that one.

You're right though, 10 vaca days a year blows.

 

[TysonCook]

I think that we're blurring the technical terms of "days off" and true "vacation".

I'm talking strictly vacation block, where you could book a ticket in advance, fly home, road trip, PLAN AHEAD etc. While we do get "days off", our departmental policy is no block longer than 5 days off in a row, regardless of vacation or schedule.

So for our program it is a moot point, 5 days total, and if you can trade out with others you may get the weekend added (but still work your NL shifts, which end up not being worth it in the end).

I'm not bit%%ing about EM or our residency, I love it 😍, but seeing your family 1x a year for 3 days (1 day flight each way), and then choosing wife/trip, visit friends/trip, wifes family/trip, fix the house/no trip etc for your other 5 days (if you get them, which I'm apparently not this year), really pisses you off.😡

(One thing that I find is that all specialties work hard, long hours, and at least at our hospital surgeons (esp ortho), and Ob/Gyn work harder longer hours than most and should get 10 weeks vacation in my book👍) )

Everyone works hard, I'm just strictly talking about being able to PLAN vacation (in the technical sense of the phrase)

 

[Winged Scapula]

I think perhaps he mispoke and meant you get "2 weekend days a month" off rather than you only work 2 weekend days a month (I think that's what he meant).

Then again, I went nearly 3.5 months without a single day off, so its not a guarantee that you even get the two days at some programs.

At any rate, I think we can all agree that only 2 five day periods off per year blows and that EM residents get more time off.

 

[Apollyon]

When I was a prelim IM resident in NYC (work for an HHC hospital), we got a calendar month off for vacation, and something like 10 sick days by contract (and we didn't have a union).

As an EM resident at Duke, my program director (who has since moved on) gave us 4 weeks of vacation - two unfettered weeks that could be taken together or one at a time, one week, and 6 days at either Christmas or New Year's. However, as senior residents, one week was required to be taken for ACEP, and, if you weren't going to ACEP, then you only got 3 weeks of vacation that year.

I don't know how much time the surgeons got off for vacation at Duke, but GS had gone to a shift work schedule after flagrantly violating work hour rules and getting their hand slapped by the ACGME. Even so, one of my colleagues (GS resident) when I was on trauma worked 18 days straight to get 3 days off to go see his wife in Miami.

 

[angel80]

I'm in an IM program. We get 3 weeks off a year(either 3 one week blocks, or a 1 week and 2 week block). We also get one week off a year for conference- meaning that you can attend any conference you want, anywhere you want, regardless of whether or not you are presenting at the conference. If you are actually presenting, you can have more conference days than that-some people present at 2-3 different conferences a year. You are payed for this conference as well-airfare, hotel, conference fees, etc. Our weeks off are M-F, with either one, or both weekends attached, depending on what rotation you are on, so you can potentially have 9 days off. As far as days off in the month, on a call month, we get 4 days off- one "golden weekend", one weekend where you're off Sat, work Sun, one weekend where you work Sat and are off Sun, and one weekend where you work both days. On clinic months, all weekends are off. On consult months, it depends, some services let you take the weekends off, on other services you work 2 weekends are are off 2 weekends, and some services you come in 2 Saturdays and are off on Sundays. We get 5-6 days off for interviewing.

 

[radonc]

4.5 weeks vacation, plus all federal holidays, and every weekend off.
we can take anywhere from a day to 2 weeks off at a time, scheduled at any point in the academic year.

 

[RTrain]

4.5 weeks vacation, plus all federal holidays, and every weekend off.
we can take anywhere from a day to 2 weeks off at a time, scheduled at any point in the academic year.

Just kill me now.

 

[Swaydaa]

5 weeks (3 weeks vacation, 1 week conference, and one week sick leave which can be used as vacation). We get all holidays off, and if you work it right you can get a 6th week off if you combine vacation with holidays.

Plus 4 days off for Thanksgiving and 5 days for Christmas or New years.