Which academic neurology residencies have the best lifestyle?

[someqsaboutstuff]

I previously posted a question about NYC neurology residencies, and that led to a very informative discussion on work hours and residency lifestyle in general.

I wanted to ask the opposite question: which neurology residencies have the best work/life balance without risking training quality? That is, among the programs that train their residents well, which ones are better in lifestyle (even if only marginally) than the others? Any speculation as to why those programs are better would be interesting.

I also stumbled on UPenn's residency webpage and noticed their work schedule is from 7-5 with weekends off. Anyone know if this is accurate or just a sales pitch to make the program look good?

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[DrSatan]

During the PGY-2 year, residents on the Ward Service are OFF every other weekend and one weekday every other week. Senior residents on the Ward Service are OFF on weekends, and take overnight home call twice per week.

Ward services probably swap every other weekend to cover then have a random weekday off covered by someone.

 

[DD214]

"Ward" - that is a name I have not heard in a long time.......

It is an anachronistic practice that only exists in academics

No neurologists admit their own patients the minute they step foot out of residency

 

[Aldertonghen]

I mostly interviewed at mid tier programs, so I don’t have the full perspective here. I think programs with a greater number of residents in a non-metropolitan area have a decent overall lifestyle. Mayo Rochester being one- with so many residents the schedule is easier than UT Southwestern (large program- but in a large city) or UMiami. Some programs like Houston Methodist are consult only- they don’t take neuro primary, and while they have very busy 24 hour calls in PGY2, they basically have almost 6 months of relatively easy neuromuscular rotations excluding elective time. This is something I really liked- EMGs is basically the one crucial thing residents are less exposed to, and what’s often mentioned on this site. Case western has a lot of time devoted for teaching alone- so your work hours isn’t great but it’s not hectic ward work.

I also look into things like X+Y and golden weekends. I’m forgettting but UMass and USF Tampa both have 2 golden weekends a month in PGY2 I think which is great.

 

[xenotype]

I mostly interviewed at mid tier programs, so I don’t have the full perspective here. I think programs with a greater number of residents in a non-metropolitan area have a decent overall lifestyle. Mayo Rochester being one- with so many residents the schedule is easier than UT Southwestern (large program- but in a large city) or UMiami. Some programs like Houston Methodist are consult only- they don’t take neuro primary, and while they have very busy 24 hour calls in PGY2, they basically have almost 6 months of relatively easy neuromuscular rotations excluding elective time. This is something I really liked- EMGs is basically the one crucial thing residents are less exposed to, and what’s often mentioned on this site. Case western has a lot of time devoted for teaching alone- so your work hours isn’t great but it’s not hectic ward work.

I also look into things like X+Y and golden weekends. I’m forgettting but UMass and USF Tampa both have 2 golden weekends a month in PGY2 I think which is great.

Schedule is very important particularly in rough PGY2. Big programs tend to have much more flexibility in call and scheduling. Always try to caution people against programs with 3 and 4 residents per year. As for avoiding programs where one has to 'work hard' or 'hectic' places- a less busy place seeing less patients means less experience and potentially lower acuity/less responsibility. Whether one will be competent and comfortable in the real world with complex patients/high acuity without doing extra years in fellowship is the issue. You can try to learn neurology from a textbook, but you may not be very good at it as a result rather than having 'seen this before' and having that all important gut recognition. In private practice as attending you will have to see a lot of patients, and occasionally they will be just as complicated as your 'teaching' cases in academics. You'll get paid on volume, and training at a 'hectic' place is perfect for learning to deal with volume and getting the raw numbers down to see the rare stuff that only comes in once in a blue moon from St. Elsewhere.