Why cannot you work in 3rd & 4th year?

[rocketbooster]

For 99.999999999999999% of the human population after spending 80+ hours working (including studying) in a week, the prospect of spending their one free day off working another 12 hour shift in a firehouse with a bunch of dudes rather than enjoying some fun hobby sounds batshiz insane.

You are off your rocker, sir.

They are slightly more than a "bunch of dudes." Closer to them than my family with the exception of my wife. And I'm sorry you think I'm insane for having a fun hobby that I actually get paid to do.

Textbook is correct. No one does what the few rare exceptions are posting on here. Not a single person in my class works during 3rd year and maybe 1-2% worked during the first 2 years. No one in their right mind would spend the one day they have off during the tough 3rd year rotations to go work somewhere and make a little bit of money and consider it "a hobby." That's ridiculous. It would be interesting to compare the grades and Step scores of these ppl to everyone else. The kind of job that would actually be flexible and work a random 10-12 hours per week is not going to be a high paying job. The amount of time you're missing out on for studying is not worth making that small salary and also making yourself even more exhausted during the week.

Funny how the only ppl who keep posting on this thread are those rare exceptions who did actually work during med school. Makes ppl with less medical experience actually think it is a common thing. But no, readers, I assure you it is not common and not worth it for the reason I mentioned above. I think you mainly see those rare ppl doing all the posting because they want some kind of acknowledgment. Well, good work, son, on exhausting yourself for no reason when your physician salary will quickly make up that extra exhausting $400 per month from med school.

I would like to add that it is only worth "working" during med school if it's research. You might be able to find a paying gig, especially over the summer after M1 year. If it's not research, then forget for the reasons above.

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[ijn]

during my first two years i usually worked at the prestigious tug 'n chugs run by the tiny asian doctor-men out of the pathology department basement. originally found them from a craigslist advertisement. seemed legit.

totally doable hour wise, plus you get to know your attendings for third year earlier than most ppl

 

[KinasePro]

during my first two years i usually worked at the prestigious tug 'n chugs run by the tiny asian doctor-men out of the pathology department basement. originally found them from a craigslist advertisement. seemed legit.

totally doable hour wise, plus you get to know your attendings for third year earlier than most ppl

nina, is that you?

 

[deleted128562]

Textbook is correct. No one does what the few rare exceptions are posting on here. Not a single person in my class works during 3rd year and maybe 1-2% worked during the first 2 years. No one in their right mind would spend the one day they have off during the tough 3rd year rotations to go work somewhere and make a little bit of money and consider it "a hobby." That's ridiculous. It would be interesting to compare the grades and Step scores of these ppl to everyone else. The kind of job that would actually be flexible and work a random 10-12 hours per week is not going to be a high paying job. The amount of time you're missing out on for studying is not worth making that small salary and also making yourself even more exhausted during the week.

Funny how the only ppl who keep posting on this thread are those rare exceptions who did actually work during med school. Makes ppl with less medical experience actually think it is a common thing. But no, readers, I assure you it is not common and not worth it for the reason I mentioned above. I think you mainly see those rare ppl doing all the posting because they want some kind of acknowledgment. Well, good work, son, on exhausting yourself for no reason when your physician salary will quickly make up that extra exhausting $400 per month from med school.

I would like to add that it is only worth "working" during med school if it's research. You might be able to find a paying gig, especially over the summer after M1 year. If it's not research, then forget for the reasons above.

Um, you think it's possible we're posting because this thread was specifically about the supposition that one cannot work during 3rd/4th year?? And $400 per month?!?! Good lord I hope not. Try about 3 times that for doing a shift a week. And the point of this is not to get kudos on the annonymous internets. Last I checked I did not start my own thread titled "Hey Look At Me, I Worked During Med School".... The point as I have said before, is that I did this because I had to and I survived just fine (and enjoyed my work) - and I would hate for someone else who is in my shoes to think they couldn't do it because the internets told them it is IMPOSSIBLE to do. (Hence they would give up on med school and their dreams).

But since we are assuming things about one another, I will just go ahead and assume that your attitude is because you are super jealous of me.

 

[Dwindlin]

Textbook is correct. No one does what the few rare exceptions are posting on here. Not a single person in my class works during 3rd year and maybe 1-2% worked during the first 2 years. No one in their right mind would spend the one day they have off during the tough 3rd year rotations to go work somewhere and make a little bit of money and consider it "a hobby." That's ridiculous. It would be interesting to compare the grades and Step scores of these ppl to everyone else. The kind of job that would actually be flexible and work a random 10-12 hours per week is not going to be a high paying job. The amount of time you're missing out on for studying is not worth making that small salary and also making yourself even more exhausted during the week.

Funny how the only ppl who keep posting on this thread are those rare exceptions who did actually work during med school. Makes ppl with less medical experience actually think it is a common thing. But no, readers, I assure you it is not common and not worth it for the reason I mentioned above. I think you mainly see those rare ppl doing all the posting because they want some kind of acknowledgment. Well, good work, son, on exhausting yourself for no reason when your physician salary will quickly make up that extra exhausting $400 per month from med school.

I would like to add that it is only worth "working" during med school if it's research. You might be able to find a paying gig, especially over the summer after M1 year. If it's not research, then forget for the reasons above.

Never said it was common. Simply providing my experiences. Again, I'm not sure why people find it crazy that I choose to work with my free time. It was fun. I would have done it for free.

Having said that, I was lucky. Netted an extra $700 a week 1st and 2nd (I'm paid $20.50/hr as a part-time Firefighter/Paramedic). Less during 3rd/4th. Still managed to get 250+ both steps and was nominated for AOA. I didn't do research, but that had nothing to do with working, I wouldn't have done it regardless.

I saved my second month of vacation for this last block of 4th year. Managed to stash away an extra $5k to help with transition to residency.

Don't plan on stopping anytime soon either. Likely won't work at all during internship, but starting second year instead of moonlighting hours (which I'm allowed to do after 6 months and satisfactory ITEs) I'll likely go back to the firehouse.

 

[ijn]

nina, is that you?

nina was like a big sister/mentor to me

she deleted all her work from reddit! much fappage was yet to be had...

google image search still picks up some of her archived naughties, though. wish her luck in not being outed to her residents, attendings, & third year clerkship directors... lawlz

 

[KinasePro]

nina was like a big sister/mentor to me

she deleted all her work from reddit! much fappage was yet to be had...

google image search still picks up some of her archived naughties, though. wish her luck in not being outed to her residents, attendings, & third year clerkship directors... lawlz

Wow, I had my money on her SDN appearance being the work of a troll, but I guess I was wrong.

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

Speak for yourself.

I'll throw in one more.

Trauma I worked the exact same hours that my residents did (we had a rotating team based system and the whole team signed out at once- we literally walked out the door together most days). We worked hard and pushed right up to the 80 hour limit.

And my core general surgery rotation was even worse. The med students on each team got in at 4:30-5:00 on average to print lists and hand write vitals on said lists, as well as preround on each patient. We also had overnight calls. It was not uncommon for students to be averaging 85-90 hours weekly.

 

[yehhhboiii]

nina was like a big sister/mentor to me

she deleted all her work from reddit! much fappage was yet to be had...

google image search still picks up some of her archived naughties, though. wish her luck in not being outed to her residents, attendings, & third year clerkship directors... lawlz

wait what

 

[FirefighterDoc]

shocking but there are some people out there who genuinely enjoy their job. I wouldn't trade a single hour in the firehouse for a few hours at the bar.

Also, not at ohio state. Ohio resident and obsessed fan (seriously i have a problem).

+1

 

[inep]

I worked 20-30 hours a week throughout including nights and weekends. 3rd year was the easiest with exception of the surgery rotation. The amount of time you have to put into med school just to pass 3rd year is minimal. Your grade mostly comes down to the shelf exam. Nobody will tell you this, but if you miss a day or two, it's not a big deal.

 

[Textbookversion]

\The amount of time you have to put into med school just to pass 3rd year is minimal.

This is the attitude that I don't get. Making an extra couple of grand is apparently more important than excelling so that you can match into a specialty where you will make millions more over the course of your career???

 

[Dwindlin]

This is the attitude that I don't get. Making an extra couple of grand is apparently more important than excelling so that you can match into a specialty where you will make millions more over the course of your career???

I know plenty of people who didn't work as hard as they could because 1) they wanted more free time (not to work but to lounge around) and 2) they knew what they wanted to do wasn't as competitive. They were well aware they weren't going to make as much money as Orthospine, and they didn't care.

Would you be as confused by this group of people? And again, working outside of school and excelling are not mutually exclusive.

 

[inep]

This is the attitude that I don't get. Making an extra couple of grand is apparently more important than excelling so that you can match into a specialty where you will make millions more over the course of your career???

In my case it was significantly more than a couple grand and I thoroughly enjoyed what I did. I wouldn't recommend it if you don't enjoy it or don't earn that much. Everybody (n=5 or so) I know that worked in med school either loved their side job or made very good money at it. If I had nothing to do but study for the USMLE, I would have blown my brains out. Granted, my grades and scores were in the bottom half of the class, but like I said, it's not that hard to pass in 3rd year.

 

[Textbookversion]

I know plenty of people who didn't work as hard as they could because 1) they wanted more free time (not to work but to lounge around) and 2) they knew what they wanted to do wasn't as competitive. They were well aware they weren't going to make as much money as Orthospine, and they didn't care.

Would you be as confused by this group of people? And again, working outside of school and excelling are not mutually exclusive.

No I'm not confused by lazy people. Good for them. I'm confused by gunners who shoot themselves in the head. That is to say they work hard at some job making $10 per hour when they could instead direct that effort towards school or relaxing so they do better in school, and make millions more.

Obviously you got the specialty you wanted and you love being a fire person so power to you. I am speaking more generally here.

 

[inep]

No I'm not confused by lazy people. Good for them. I'm confused by gunners who shoot themselves in the head. That is to say they work hard at some job making $10 per hour when they could instead direct that effort towards school or relaxing so they do better in school, and make millions more.

Obviously you got the specialty you wanted and you love being a fire person so power to you. I am speaking more generally here.

Studying harder in med school isn't going to mean that you'll make millions more. Getting a few extra points on the USMLE might raise your chances of getting an ultra competitive residency spot, but that doesn't guarantee you'll become rich. Business saavy and questionable ethics can lead to large amounts of money in virtually any medical specialty. More important to do what you like. Reason people like him and me continue to work on the side. Hope that makes sense.

 

[qxrt]

I didn't work during medical school, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. With the exception of my surgery rotation, I had plenty of free time outside the hospital, without sacrificing my board scores or grades. I personally wouldn't work extra because I like my free time, but I can see why it would be appealing to make some extra money doing some interesting work during my free time.

 

[TooMuchResearch]

No way do you spend 80 hrs/week at the hospital in third year.

I frequently do.

 

[inep]

I frequently do.

Mandatory? The most I ever pulled was around 65 on a grueling surgery week.

In my third year, I had a total of 4 or 5 overnight calls, only slept in the hospital once, and had a single week of nights on OB. The longest I was ever "on" was 0400-2000, which happened once during CTS and one 0500-2100 in plastic. And even these weren't that bad because the next day was either off or lighter. I don't ever recall coming in more than 5 days in a row. On surgery, start times were very early, but after rounds you had about 2 hours of dead time and after going into a case or two, if you didn't have a clinic to go to, you could pretty much leave whenever you want. My intern flat out told me to go home if he ever saw me on the wards past 2PM. If you left on your own without asking, either nobody noticed or cared. I did it often when I could tell it was futile for me to be there.

For the rest of the rotations, pretty much every weekend was free and we were out by 4 or 5PM. On psych, a typical day was 10-2. Peds, Family Med, and Neuro were all less than 8 hours a day. OB/gyn was the only one that really stuck me with 12 hour days with no opportunity for leaving early because you had to trade nights/days, but still it was only 8 shifts in 14 days.

There were a couple of exceptions, but third year was not bad at all unless you chose to make it that way, which a lot of people did and complained about. A classmate of mine described his IM rotation being there 100 hours a week. I did the same rotation, made the same grade, and was there 40-50 hours a week. Bottom line, enjoy your life, don't make your role out as a third year to be more important than it is, don't hang around staring at the wall, and don't "gun" during 3rd year. Your clinical evaluations will come down to how personable/friendly you are, how good your presentations are, and how good you are with patients, not how long you stuck around staring at the wall or how well you memorized surgical recall (a completely worthless book, don't waste a minute reading it), and those evaluations will contribute minimally to your grade because you have to really screw up not to get high clinical marks (I screwed up really bad once on OB and still got by with an average eval -- I thought I was going to have to repeat). The differentiating factor of your grade is the shelf.

 

[45408]

Mandatory? The most I ever pulled was around 65 on a grueling surgery week.

In my third year, I had a total of 4 or 5 overnight calls, only slept in the hospital once, and had a single week of nights on OB. The longest I was ever "on" was 0400-2000, which happened once during CTS and one 0500-2100 in plastic. And even these weren't that bad because the next day was either off or lighter. I don't ever recall coming in more than 5 days in a row. On surgery, start times were very early, but after rounds you had about 2 hours of dead time and after going into a case or two, if you didn't have a clinic to go to, you could pretty much leave whenever you want. My intern flat out told me to go home if he ever saw me on the wards past 2PM. If you left on your own without asking, either nobody noticed or cared. I did it often when I could tell it was futile for me to be there.

For the rest of the rotations, pretty much every weekend was free and we were out by 4 or 5PM. On psych, a typical day was 10-2. Peds, Family Med, and Neuro were all less than 8 hours a day. OB/gyn was the only one that really stuck me with 12 hour days with no opportunity for leaving early because you had to trade nights/days, but still it was only 8 shifts in 14 days.

There were a couple of exceptions, but third year was not bad at all unless you chose to make it that way, which a lot of people did and complained about.

Many students do not have that level of flexibility. I had 7 overnight calls on trauma surgery and 5-6 of them on OB/gyn. The rest were short call. I was never told to go home at 2pm except on 4th year off-service electives in February. I had numerous stretches of being there 12 days in a row (if you're on call Saturday, you'll be there every day for almost 2 weeks).

A classmate of mine described his IM rotation being there 100 hours a week. I did the same rotation, made the same grade, and was there 40-50 hours a week. Bottom line, enjoy your life, don't make your role out as a third year to be more important than it is, don't hang around staring at the wall, and don't "gun" during 3rd year. Your clinical evaluations will come down to how personable/friendly you are, how good your presentations are, and how good you are with patients, not how long you stuck around staring at the wall or how well you memorized surgical recall (a completely worthless book, don't waste a minute reading it), and those evaluations will contribute minimally to your grade because you have to really screw up not to get high clinical marks (I screwed up really bad once on OB and still got by with an average eval -- I thought I was going to have to repeat). The differentiating factor of your grade is the shelf.

Your evaluations also reflect how involved you are and how much you participated. Maybe yours were fine, but a lot of students would get seriously dinged for ducking out so early.

 

[badasshairday]

Mandatory? The most I ever pulled was around 65 on a grueling surgery week.

In my third year, I had a total of 4 or 5 overnight calls, only slept in the hospital once, and had a single week of nights on OB. The longest I was ever "on" was 0400-2000, which happened once during CTS and one 0500-2100 in plastic. And even these weren't that bad because the next day was either off or lighter. I don't ever recall coming in more than 5 days in a row. On surgery, start times were very early, but after rounds you had about 2 hours of dead time and after going into a case or two, if you didn't have a clinic to go to, you could pretty much leave whenever you want. My intern flat out told me to go home if he ever saw me on the wards past 2PM. If you left on your own without asking, either nobody noticed or cared. I did it often when I could tell it was futile for me to be there.

For the rest of the rotations, pretty much every weekend was free and we were out by 4 or 5PM. On psych, a typical day was 10-2. Peds, Family Med, and Neuro were all less than 8 hours a day. OB/gyn was the only one that really stuck me with 12 hour days with no opportunity for leaving early because you had to trade nights/days, but still it was only 8 shifts in 14 days.

There were a couple of exceptions, but third year was not bad at all unless you chose to make it that way, which a lot of people did and complained about. A classmate of mine described his IM rotation being there 100 hours a week. I did the same rotation, made the same grade, and was there 40-50 hours a week. Bottom line, enjoy your life, don't make your role out as a third year to be more important than it is, don't hang around staring at the wall, and don't "gun" during 3rd year. Your clinical evaluations will come down to how personable/friendly you are, how good your presentations are, and how good you are with patients, not how long you stuck around staring at the wall or how well you memorized surgical recall (a completely worthless book, don't waste a minute reading it), and those evaluations will contribute minimally to your grade because you have to really screw up not to get high clinical marks (I screwed up really bad once on OB and still got by with an average eval -- I thought I was going to have to repeat). The differentiating factor of your grade is the shelf.

Sounds like you went to a weak medical school.

 

[NewYorkDoctors]

I worked in third and fourth years.. part time of course.. about 20 hours a week.

How? I worked in an ER in the same hospital I did my rotations in.

It was all scutwork but the pay was decent.

The best thing was because I worked at least 20 hours a week and was a full time student, I got free food stamps! Can't beat that.

 

[Dwindlin]

Sounds like you went to a weak medical school.

While you may be correct about his medical school, lets not pretend more hours in the hospital equals better education. I enjoyed trauma call but for the most part it was worthless. Many hours sitting there doing nothing but reading, which as I've said above I could be doing elsewhere and getting paid to do it.

I'm not sure yet where I stand on having students wait around "in case **** happens."

 

[ssttrrbbk]

I tutored undergrads every year. It gave me a small amt of spending cash. My boss from undergrad tutoring moved to the same school states away at the same time and I got a super small raise. It was probably not worth it, but it paid for going out.

 

[45408]

While you may be correct about his medical school, lets not pretend more hours in the hospital equals better education. I enjoyed trauma call but for the most part it was worthless. Many hours sitting there doing nothing but reading, which as I've said above I could be doing elsewhere and getting paid to do it.

I'm not sure yet where I stand on having students wait around "in case **** happens."

Sounds like a weak trauma rotation then. People got shot at night when I was on trauma call.

I don't think it's a good idea to have students around "in case something happens." I think it's a good idea to have them at a place where something happens. Remember, the point of rotations is also to find out what you want to do. Just because you already know you have no interest in peds/surgery/IM doesn't mean that everyone else has already made that decision and is looking to skim by. I did as much as I could on my surgery and rotations because I was seriously considering both and honestly didn't know what I wanted to do. I was even rolling around the possibility of something like neonatology or OB/gyn, so I went into those rotations with an open mind too.

 

[Stellar Clouds]

Mandatory? The most I ever pulled was around 65 on a grueling surgery week.

In my third year, I had a total of 4 or 5 overnight calls, only slept in the hospital once, and had a single week of nights on OB. The longest I was ever "on" was 0400-2000, which happened once during CTS and one 0500-2100 in plastic. And even these weren't that bad because the next day was either off or lighter. I don't ever recall coming in more than 5 days in a row. On surgery, start times were very early, but after rounds you had about 2 hours of dead time and after going into a case or two, if you didn't have a clinic to go to, you could pretty much leave whenever you want. My intern flat out told me to go home if he ever saw me on the wards past 2PM. If you left on your own without asking, either nobody noticed or cared. I did it often when I could tell it was futile for me to be there.

For the rest of the rotations, pretty much every weekend was free and we were out by 4 or 5PM. On psych, a typical day was 10-2. Peds, Family Med, and Neuro were all less than 8 hours a day. OB/gyn was the only one that really stuck me with 12 hour days with no opportunity for leaving early because you had to trade nights/days, but still it was only 8 shifts in 14 days.

There were a couple of exceptions, but third year was not bad at all unless you chose to make it that way, which a lot of people did and complained about. A classmate of mine described his IM rotation being there 100 hours a week. I did the same rotation, made the same grade, and was there 40-50 hours a week. Bottom line, enjoy your life, don't make your role out as a third year to be more important than it is, don't hang around staring at the wall, and don't "gun" during 3rd year. Your clinical evaluations will come down to how personable/friendly you are, how good your presentations are, and how good you are with patients, not how long you stuck around staring at the wall or how well you memorized surgical recall (a completely worthless book, don't waste a minute reading it), and those evaluations will contribute minimally to your grade because you have to really screw up not to get high clinical marks (I screwed up really bad once on OB and still got by with an average eval -- I thought I was going to have to repeat). The differentiating factor of your grade is the shelf.

Wow...65 hrs was your worst gen surg week? I just went back and looked at my logs:
Week 1: 66
Week 2: 59
Week 3: 49
Week 4: 99
I wish that last one was a typo. Zero days off plus two 27 hr calls

 

[mvenus929]

Mandatory? The most I ever pulled was around 65 on a grueling surgery week.

In my third year, I had a total of 4 or 5 overnight calls, only slept in the hospital once, and had a single week of nights on OB. The longest I was ever "on" was 0400-2000, which happened once during CTS and one 0500-2100 in plastic. And even these weren't that bad because the next day was either off or lighter. I don't ever recall coming in more than 5 days in a row. On surgery, start times were very early, but after rounds you had about 2 hours of dead time and after going into a case or two, if you didn't have a clinic to go to, you could pretty much leave whenever you want. My intern flat out told me to go home if he ever saw me on the wards past 2PM. If you left on your own without asking, either nobody noticed or cared. I did it often when I could tell it was futile for me to be there.

For the rest of the rotations, pretty much every weekend was free and we were out by 4 or 5PM. On psych, a typical day was 10-2. Peds, Family Med, and Neuro were all less than 8 hours a day. OB/gyn was the only one that really stuck me with 12 hour days with no opportunity for leaving early because you had to trade nights/days, but still it was only 8 shifts in 14 days.

I had a pretty easy surgery rotation for my school. My first month, I averaged 60 hours per week (with the most being 82.5). It would have been more, but because it was an away rotation, we had to check out before noon on our last Friday and didn't work the weekend between blocks, plus our first day, we were basically told to go home right after we met with our resident because there were no surgeries that day. Other days I was there until 8pm because we had surgeries. My second month of surgery, I worked 12ish hours per day 5 days a week, then either had an overnight call over the weekend or had to come in for rounds. My friends on different services had to be there before I did in the morning and were often there much later than I was. I didn't sleep at all on my second overnight call (and only did during the first because my residents were jerks and didn't let us know when things were going on... they had their own call rooms to stay in and would shoo us away so they could sleep, so it's not like we just disappeared).

On IM, we had short calls til 8 Q4 (unless it was the weekend, then we had 24 hour call), and often had to stay for sign-out at 5 even on our non-call days. On peds, we were required to stay for signout, which meant I was doing 12 hour days (course, I also didn't have to work weekends on peds, so, there's that). On OB nights, our hours were 4pm til 6am, because we had to come in for our daily lecture.

Point is, people have very different experiences from your own as MS3s.