PRS Residency Hours

[Peruano]

Medical student in my clinical year, currently on surgery and loving almost every minute. I've enjoyed anatomy since undergrad. I would choose surgery in an instant if I weren't an older medical student with children and a spouse who also has a career she wants to pursue. For this reason, I've currently set myself up to go into radiology and have more manageable hours so that I can enable my spouse to work more and help her with raising our kids as much as possible. I just can't shake how much I love surgery though. I'm interested in plastics because I've enjoyed working with the plastic surgeons at my institution, I like open operations more than scopes, I find suturing to be therapeutic, and I hope the hours are a little better compared to other surgical fields. I'm quite confident I would love my job as a plastic surgeon, what I'm trying to figure out is if my spouse and I could make the work/life balance work for our situation. I'm willing to lose hours of sleep for it, but I'd like to quantify that as best as possible.

Here is my request: For those who have completed training or are currently in residency, please post the average hours a week you worked for each year (just a rough estimate).

For instance:
PGY1 (Gen Surg): 90 hours
PGY2 (Gen Surg or PRS year?): 80 hours
PGY3 (Gen Surg or PRS year?): 75 hours
etc. etc.
PGY6 (PRS year):80 hours

Or you could post your fellowship hours in a similar manner if you went into plastics after a full gen surg residency.

I am aware that websites like FREIDA have hours posted, but I have seen many things that make me suspicious that what is posted there is often unrealistically low, and often it's just posted for the PGY1 year.

I would hope to keep this as objective as possible--just listing hours, it'd be awesome if you felt comfortable listing the institution but that might not be appropriate. However, if you'd like to eviscerate me for thinking about hours, I don't mind.

Thank you in advance to anyone who is willing to provide their input.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[pla5tic986]

I think there's a misconception that plastic surgery residency training has better hours than other surgical specialties. Of course, this could change once you're out in private practice but there's no way around the hours needed to become a competent independent surgeon. I'm only going into my 3rd year (integrated track) but we do a solid 1.5 years of general surgery and my worst hours are by far on the PRS rotations. Sure, maybe it's because I'm more willing to stay late to help cover a case or see a consult but you'll find that even the seniors stay late as PRS routinely has rooms going well past the proverbial 6pm "signout". It's just the nature of the beast when you're the "closers" and waiting for surg onc to finish their resection. That being said, I'd rather work 120 hours a week doing PRS than 60 hours doing general surgery or something else. You find yourself losing track of time when you pick something you truly enjoy. To answer your question:
-PGY1 general surgery: 80 hours
-PGY1 PRS rotations: >90 hours
-PGY2 general surgery: 75-80 hours
-PGY2 PRS rotations: >90 hours

I would caution you not to look too deeply into the hours of the different specialities as a surrogate for anything other than your time not in the hospital. I say this because my wife tells this story of me at my grumpiest while on the "best" general surgery rotation where I worked only about 70 hours/week. In contrast, she notices I have more energy, am more pleasant, and more engaged in dinner conversation after my 90 hour PRS work weeks. When I'm happy, she's happy. There's a good chance that you could be a better husband, father, etc if you truly choose what makes you happy. Just a thought

 

[Peruano]

I think there's a misconception that plastic surgery residency training has better hours than other surgical specialties. Of course, this could change once you're out in private practice but there's no way around the hours needed to become a competent independent surgeon. I'm only going into my 3rd year (integrated track) but we do a solid 1.5 years of general surgery and my worst hours are by far on the PRS rotations. Sure, maybe it's because I'm more willing to stay late to help cover a case or see a consult but you'll find that even the seniors stay late as PRS routinely has rooms going well past the proverbial 6pm "signout". It's just the nature of the beast when you're the "closers" and waiting for surg onc to finish their resection. That being said, I'd rather work 120 hours a week doing PRS than 60 hours doing general surgery or something else. You find yourself losing track of time when you pick something you truly enjoy. To answer your question:
-PGY1 general surgery: 80 hours
-PGY1 PRS rotations: >90 hours
-PGY2 general surgery: 75-80 hours
-PGY2 PRS rotations: >90 hours

I would caution you not to look too deeply into the hours of the different specialities as a surrogate for anything other than your time not in the hospital. I say this because my wife tells this story of me at my grumpiest while on the "best" general surgery rotation where I worked only about 70 hours/week. In contrast, she notices I have more energy, am more pleasant, and more engaged in dinner conversation after my 90 hour PRS work weeks. When I'm happy, she's happy. There's a good chance that you could be a better husband, father, etc if you truly choose what makes you happy. Just a thought

Thank you for this awesome response! With regard to hours, I didn't imagine (nor would I want) any less time in the operating room during training. I just figured in my head that the acuity of the patients admitted to the plastic service would be much less compared to those on a general surgery service with all their medical co-morbidities that have to be managed through the day and night. Thus I thought that the time spent managing the floor would be a lot less, and therefore less hours overall. Thanks for informing my ignorance about those hours.

I think your wife's story is quite wise. Now that I think of it, some of my easier clerkships that I found to be less interesting left me in a worse mood compared to more demanding clerkships where I enjoyed the work. It's easier to get up at 4:30 for cool surgery cases than it was for me to wake up at 7 for clinic days that I found boring, even if it meant I got home later after surgery than after clinic. I'm a lot more animated at the dinner table after a day of helping with surgical cases than I am after a day of writing SOAP notes.

 

[bannie22]

90 hours? damn surgeons work hard