When do residents start getting paid?

[famdoc2015]

Do residents start getting paid right away, including the orientation week activities or is it July 1st? Just wondering 🙂 Thanks!

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[dpmd]

Do residents start getting paid right away, including the orientation week activities or is it July 1st? Just wondering 🙂 Thanks!

Program dependent if they pay you for orientation, but your first check won't come until the end of a pay period (say they pay every two weeks and you start at the beginning of the two week period. You wouldn't get paid for those two weeks until the next payday.

 

[QofQuimica]

At my program, we did get paid for orientation, but that money didn't come until mid-August. My first regular check came in mid-July (we are paid biweekly). I suggest that you have enough money set aside to get you through until the end of July just to be on the safe side.

 

[peppy]

I was paid a small amount for orientation but my first paycheck didn't come until the end of the month. Definitely try to set aside enough money to get you through till late July.

 

[Samoa]

Call or email your internship's GME office to find out what your institution does (if the pay period and 1st check info is not on their website). No one will think poorly of you for wanting to plan your budget ahead of time.

 

[45408]

I got paid for orientation (much to my surprise), and the paycheck arrived right around July 1. Just call/e-mail your program coordinator and ask. It's no big deal.

 

[Dartmouth2005]

I got paid for orientation (much to my surprise), and the paycheck arrived right around July 1. Just call/e-mail your program coordinator and ask. It's no big deal.

If the orientation takes places during your employee's regularly scheduled hours of work, the time is probably "hours worked" and therefore has to be paid under the FLSA.

See http://www.shrm.org/Publications/hrmagazine/EditorialContent/Pages/0208hrsolutions.aspx (stating that orientation for new hires must be paid).

 

[Winged Scapula]

If the orientation takes places during your employee's regularly scheduled hours of work, the time is probably "hours worked" and therefore has to be paid under the FLSA.

See http://www.shrm.org/Publications/hrmagazine/EditorialContent/Pages/0208hrsolutions.aspx (stating that orientation for new hires must be paid).

1) orientation usually occurs before "regularly scheduled hours of work", i.e. before residency starts;

2) residents may be considered students and not employees (age old argument)

 

[Dartmouth2005]

1) orientation usually occurs before "regularly scheduled hours of work", i.e. before residency starts;

If you are mandated to be there even before residency starts, then those are scheduled work hours.

2) residents may be considered students and not employees (age old argument)

I know that argument, but I would argue that, if I am taxed as an employee by the government, then I have rights as an employee. See http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1100414 ("The Supreme Court's decision in Mayo v. United States may have other, indirect legal implications as well. Residents could find additional support in the Court's unambiguous holding for efforts to enforce other workplace rights, such as unemployment benefits (e.g., after hospital closure) or protection under the Family Medical Leave Act. Residents may not be fully trained physicians, but there are benefits to not being labeled as "students" in the eyes of the law."); see also http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...dical_residents_not_students_for_tax_purposes.

What would also help is seeing if the hospitals pay unemployment taxes and workers comp premiums here. If they do, there is a lot of support for making residents "employees." If not, it would be interesting to see if a state agency might now sue to collect those taxes.

Would I actually challenge not getting paid for orientation and risk my career? Prolly not.

 

[Winged Scapula]

1) orientation usually occurs before "regularly scheduled hours of work", i.e. before residency starts;

If you are mandated to be there even before residency starts, then those are scheduled work hours.

Yes, but you are assuming something that may not be true. Programs may or may not mandate orientation which starts before residency/regularly scheduled hours. I suspect that for programs that don't pay, this is how they get around it (by not actually mandating it, but of course, not telling residents that its not)

2) residents may be considered students and not employees (age old argument)

I know that argument, but I would argue that, if I am taxed as an employee by the government, then I have rights as an employee. See http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1100414 ("The Supreme Court's decision in Mayo v. United States may have other, indirect legal implications as well. Residents could find additional support in the Court's unambiguous holding for efforts to enforce other workplace rights, such as unemployment benefits (e.g., after hospital closure) or protection under the Family Medical Leave Act. Residents may not be fully trained physicians, but there are benefits to not being labeled as "students" in the eyes of the law."); see also http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...dical_residents_not_students_for_tax_purposes.

What would also help is seeing if the hospitals pay unemployment taxes and workers comp premiums here. If they do, there is a lot of support for making residents "employees." If not, it would be interesting to see if a state agency might now sue to collect those taxes.

Would I actually challenge not getting paid for orientation and risk my career? Prolly not.

Yeah, yeah. We all get it and are quite familiar with the issues. My point was not to get into such a discussion but to point out that you may not be familiar with the inner workings of residency programs. Programs are not known to be bastions of fairness, even in employment law.

 

[LucidSplash]

I too was paid for orientation, but the funds were added into the check I received at the end of July. We are paid monthly, so that was my first paycheck. Most of my colleagues from medical school were paid something for orientation, thought I didn't do a formal poll. But I wouldn't expect those funds to show up earlier than your first scheduled paycheck as that seems to be the exception (lucky exception!) rather than the rule. July of PGY-1 was a long month... luckily my institution gives residents a daily stipend in the cafeteria. The food is not very good for you but I would have been eating ramen and dollar store crackers that month otherwise.

 

[Smurfette]

My program had a week's worth of unpaid orientation, FWIW. I'm pretty sure none of the 200+ interns at my entire hospital got paid for their various orientation activities (based on the fact that there were both program-specific and also hospital-specific activities for all incoming interns during the week).

 

[Impromptu]

No pay for the orientation.
They did divide our first year's pay into 13 allotments for the first year and gave us the first paycheck on the first of July. Same total, smaller individual sums, nice to have right up front.

 

[Rutgers06]

Do residents start getting paid right away, including the orientation week activities or is it July 1st? Just wondering 🙂 Thanks!

It really is program dependent and also depends on whether you're paid biweekly or monthly. My program has a biweekly schedule and we got paid for orientation, so we got our first partial paycheck on June 21st (orientation started June 13th) and will be getting our first full paycheck this Thurs.

 

[famdoc2015]

So it looks like my program does pay for orientation - but not until the third week in July!

 

[Winged Scapula]

I did not get paid for the weeks worth of residency orientation but did get paid for fellowship orientation. As I recall the first check came on July 15 and included orientation for fellowship and one week of work.

 

[jazzman84]

We don't get paid until August...this is gonna be a lean month

 

[username456789]

1) orientation usually occurs before "regularly scheduled hours of work", i.e. before residency starts;

If you are mandated to be there even before residency starts, then those are scheduled work hours.

2) residents may be considered students and not employees (age old argument)

I know that argument, but I would argue that, if I am taxed as an employee by the government, then I have rights as an employee. See http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1100414 ("The Supreme Court's decision in Mayo v. United States may have other, indirect legal implications as well. Residents could find additional support in the Court's unambiguous holding for efforts to enforce other workplace rights, such as unemployment benefits (e.g., after hospital closure) or protection under the Family Medical Leave Act. Residents may not be fully trained physicians, but there are benefits to not being labeled as “students” in the eyes of the law."); see also http://www.insidehighered.com/news/...dical_residents_not_students_for_tax_purposes.

What would also help is seeing if the hospitals pay unemployment taxes and workers comp premiums here. If they do, there is a lot of support for making residents "employees." If not, it would be interesting to see if a state agency might now sue to collect those taxes.

Would I actually challenge not getting paid for orientation and risk my career? Prolly not.

I got paid for my orientation, including being paid for BLS/ACLS (as in, not just having them pay for the course for me, but also paying me on top of that).

 

[Aureliux]

That sounds about right. Pay checks kicked in 2-3 weeks after beginning/orientation. Also depending on your program's pay schedule (q 2weeks or 1-2x/month).

 

[kryptik]

My program pays 2x a month. We got paid for orientation week yesterday.