wife giving birth during intern year

[Falconclaw]

ED attendings work like 44 hours a week on average, which is much less than residents work. It's not like in surgery where sometimes the attendings work more than the residents.

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[NITRAS]

You may find that you bond with with your baby very quickly. But take off as much time as you can get, and afford.

That being said, what’s more important than whether you take 3 days, a week or 3 months off after birth, is how much family time you have over the long haul. If you get huge time off for immediate post birth period, that’s great. But if you are constantly working 2 months in, when the baby makes eye contact first the first time ever, learns to walk around a year, needs someone to tell them stories at night during elementary school or needs someone to teach them to ride a bike when they’re five, then the immediate neonatal period will pale in comparison.

I agree with the above. If your wife is breastfeeding, both baby and mommy need to learn how. Once they get that down, its pretty straightforward, and I really was just there to help my wife with small things.

Tips I learned
1. Pack your baby go bag in advance. . . . . not while your wife is having contractions every 3 minutes (it makes it worse that my son was born on his due date).
2. If possible pre-register with the hospital. you can often negotiate charges with the hospital in advance.
3. If your wife doesn't want an epidural, seriously look into a Doula. It really helped us on our first child. Helped us labor largely at home. I was really resistant to it at first, but we found ones that weren't wakerdoodle.
4. Figure out in advance what your going to do with your parents and her parents.
5. Newborns are extremely portable (especially compared to later). Get out of the house some.

 

[Groove]

What were typical residency shift lengths in the ED back in the day? Nowadays, ED shifts are capped at 12 hours, which always seemed reasonable for the pace of a typical residency-associated ED.

I was mainly referring to non ED rotations. Residency ED shifts were 12 hours for us. I think we worked about 16-17 shifts or so officially, give or take. The PGY3's and 4s would then sell shifts to the PGY2s for about $500/shift so they could moonlight more. Moonlighting was rampant, encouraged and the residency kind of turned the other direction in regards to tracking how many hours we worked a month. Some months as a PGY2 I might work 22, 12 hours shifts a month. One of the seniors would always sell me his shifts and I was desperate for the cash so I was his total bitch throughout my PGY2 year. I was just as guilty of selling them during my third and fourth years too, so I can't blame him.

During my PGY3,4 years, I was one of the few that moonlighted out of state (IMG, couldn't get perm state license until PGY3, whereas nearby state only required PGY2). We had didactic conferences on Thursdays I believe. I would leave about 30 mins early, jet to the airport. Bounce through ATL, fly into my airport. Grab my car, drive about an hour 15 to my gig, check in hotel, grab a quick nap and then do 4 nights in a row. I would come off my shift Monday morning and drive back to airport, fly home and crash. Then get up and work my scheduled shifts the next day unless I could sell them to one of our junior residents. Some months I would fly out twice. My PGY3 year, I worked all 3 weeks of my vacation. I can barely remember those weeks but I needed the cash. Luckily, I didn't kill anyone.

Fun times.

 

[GonnaBeADoc2222]

I was mainly referring to non ED rotations. Residency ED shifts were 12 hours for us. I think we worked about 16-17 shifts or so officially. The PGY3's and 4s would then sell shifts to the PGY2s for about $500/shift so they could moonlight more. Moonlighting was rampant, encouraged and the residency kind of turned the other direction in regards to tracking how many hours we worked a month. Some months as a PGY2 I might work 22, 12 hours shifts a month. One of the seniors would always sell me his shifts and I was desperate for the cash so I was his total bitch throughout my PGY2 year. I was just as guilty of selling them during my third and fourth years too, so I can't blame him.

During my PGY3,4 years, I was one of the few that moonlighted out of state (IMG, couldn't get perm state license until PGY3, whereas nearby state only required PGY2). We had didactic conferences on Thursdays I believe. I would leave about 30 mins early, jet to the airport. Bounce through ATL, fly into my airport. Grab my car, drive about an hour 15 to my gig, check in hotel, grab a quick nap and then do 4 nights in a row. I would come off my shift Monday morning and drive back to airport, fly home and crash. Then get up and work my scheduled shifts the next day unless I could sell them to one of our junior residents. Some months I would fly out twice. My PGY3 year, I worked all 3 weeks of my vacation. I can barely remember those weeks but I needed the cash. Luckily, I didn't kill anyone.

Fun times.

Kind of makes you question the requirements of residency....

 

[Groove]

Kind of makes you question the requirements of residency....

You mean the moonlighting? Well, many of the EDs in the south are desperate and there aren't enough physicians, so it was extremely easy to find high paying moonlighting gigs in my area. In hindsight, working that many hours was ridiculous and I would never encourage someone to do that, but like I said, I felt desperate for the money at the time. I was newly married and my wife had lost her job and didn't work for well over a year, so I was trying to make ends meet. Ironically, we got divorced before I finished residency. The gig I found at the time was through Weatherby after my program director recommended them. An SDG had picked up several new rural EDs in a nearby state and couldn't staff them and so they were desperate to find physicians. I'm not sure they would have considered me otherwise but they were getting a good deal and I didn't really know my worth at the time so my negotiating skills were not very well developed. They made bank on me over those last two years but I was just happy to be making some extra cash. It was phenomenal experience, but not something I would recommend for everyone.

In general though, I think moonlighting is great experience for residents.

 

[jw3600]

LOL, oh relax people. I’m joking. Kinda.

I should have apologized in advance for all my toxic masculinity.

I hate this kind of straw man arguing. People are calling you out for being a toxic dick, which you were being. You come back and act like you’re a victim of the baseless concept that is toxic masculinity (agreed, it’s a nonsensical thing). But as annoying as people yelling about toxic masculinity is, it’s equally annoying people putting down good faith arguments under the guise of martyrdom. It’s really disengenious.

 

[Falconclaw]

You mean the moonlighting? Well, many of the EDs in the south are desperate and there aren't enough physicians, so it was extremely easy to find high paying moonlighting gigs in my area. In hindsight, working that many hours was ridiculous and I would never encourage someone to do that, but like I said, I felt desperate for the money at the time. I was newly married and my wife had lost her job and didn't work for well over a year, so I was trying to make ends meet. Ironically, we got divorced before I finished residency. The gig I found at the time was through Weatherby after my program director recommended them. An SDG had picked up several new rural EDs in a nearby state and couldn't staff them and so they were desperate to find physicians. I'm not sure they would have considered me otherwise but they were getting a good deal and I didn't really know my worth at the time so my negotiating skills were not very well developed. They made bank on me over those last two years but I was just happy to be making some extra cash. It was phenomenal experience, but not something I would recommend for everyone.

In general though, I think moonlighting is great experience for residents.

So you had to work all those extra hours to compensate for the fact that your wife couldn't work, and then you guys got divorced anyway, and I'm guessing you remained childless. Not to put too fine a point, but that certainly explains the bitterness towards a married future dad maybe wanting some time off to bond with the newest member of the family

I try not to be a prick like this and point out people's emotional vulnerabilities but if you dish it out you gotta be able to take it.

By the way, it does suck that that happened to you. I wish it would've worked out differently.

I agree with the above. If your wife is breastfeeding, both baby and mommy need to learn how. Once they get that down, its pretty straightforward, and I really was just there to help my wife with small things.

Tips I learned
1. Pack your baby go bag in advance. . . . . not while your wife is having contractions every 3 minutes (it makes it worse that my son was born on his due date).
2. If possible pre-register with the hospital. you can often negotiate charges with the hospital in advance.
3. If your wife doesn't want an epidural, seriously look into a Doula. It really helped us on our first child. Helped us labor largely at home. I was really resistant to it at first, but we found ones that weren't wakerdoodle.
4. Figure out in advance what your going to do with your parents and her parents.
5. Newborns are extremely portable (especially compared to later). Get out of the house some.

Thanks for the advice man! Haha the not packing my bag till the last minute def sounds like something I would do...I'll try to avoid it!

 

[deleted109597]

Locking as the useful information has been given, and now it's not beneficial.