What does the week or month of a surgery resident look like?

[soundofwonder]

Someone recently told me that their brother is doing orthopedic surgery residency and it's normal hours like 9-5, if I remember correctly?

What is the day/week/month schedule for a surgery resident whether it be for general surgery or neurological surgery or the various cardiothoracic surgery residency options?

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[Synchronous]

Where is that residency? I’m doing Gen Surg and my day is 545 - 430 or 530 and I’m on call Q3.

 

[ACSurgeon]

Someone recently told me that their brother is doing orthopedic surgery residency and it's normal hours like 9-5, if I remember correctly?

What is the day/week/month schedule for a surgery resident whether it be for general surgery or neurological surgery or the various cardiothoracic surgery residency options?

Your day starts between 5-6 am. Depends on the service and your seniority. Occasionally later but almost never past 7 am on a weekday.

Your day ends when the work finishes. A normal day would be 12-14 hours. A call day 28 hours. A weekend day not on call 4-6 hours. You get the idea.

OR cases start at 7. As a resident you have to be done rounding by the time first case starts.

People occasionally incorrectly compare a busy IM week to a busy surgery week. While a busy week can be comparable, the difference is in surgical residency you have a busy week EVERY week for 5-8 years. IM or other non-surgical residencies have electives or outpatient months that are easier.

It’s worth it. So worth it.

 

[TraumaLlamaMD]

Someone recently told me that their brother is doing orthopedic surgery residency and it's normal hours like 9-5, if I remember correctly?

What is the day/week/month schedule for a surgery resident whether it be for general surgery or neurological surgery or the various cardiothoracic surgery residency options?

Sounds more like his brother is doing an Orthopedics PA rotation...

 

[WedgeDawg]

My very limited n=1 experience:

On service: get in around 5:15, leave the hospital on average around 7:30-7:45. Early days I’ll leave by 6:30 (maybe once a week). Late days I’ll leave after 8:30 (1-3 times per week). 6 days per week.

Off service ICU: get in around 5-5:30. Leave by 6:15 if not on call, leave by 10 am the next day if on call. Call 1-2x/week. One full day off a week + post call days.

 

[soundofwonder]

Where is that residency? I’m doing Gen Surg and my day is 545 - 430 or 530 and I’m on call Q3.

Didn't ask where. I probably didn't remember the times correctly, but she said he does normal hours when I mentioned something like "I heard in surgery residency you do like 80+ hours!"

Thank you for responding everyone.

Another question, how do you feel after completing the day/Are you exhausted? What do you do? Do you still have energy to do other things?

Do you guys do research or have you heard of people doing research after they're off? I'm interested in basic science (making the pancreas using stem cells), somewhat related to general surgery? Probably more so related to transplant surgery... in general surgery residency do you have time for basic science research and do programs allow you to carry out research?

Someone told me finding time to do basic science research as a surgeon is tough because the hospital would rather have you performing surgeries than researching.

 

[Dares Dareson]

OP is probably a troll but I like explaining things so here it goes:

It depends if your program uses a night float system or a call system. My program is night float. We work 28 day blocks and switch services thereafter. We get 4 of 28 days off per ACGME rules. So it works out like this:

M-F juniors arrive at 6am, sign out at 5pm, leave around 6pm usually. Seniors arrive a little later (630) and leave earlier (515) unless operating. Most programs seem to start at 5am. However, they also end earlier than mine does. We never end earlier and often time stay past sign out. Example: This week I have stayed until 7pm and 10pm on different days. We tend to get a lot of add on cases through the ED that go late.

Sat/Sun x 2: arrive at 7am, sign out at 7pm. Most programs do this differently: one weekend you work a 24 Friday (7a to 7a), off Saturday, and a 12 Sunday (7a to 7p) and then the other weekend you work Saturday 24 hour 7a to 7p. Either way, you still end up working 24 hours on 2 weekends per month, weekend being defined as friday evening to sunday evening.

Other Sat/Sun x2: off

The advantage of night float is you get two golden weekends pretty consistently.

The disadvantage if you have to work nights, usually 2 to 3 blocks a year. This usually involves working Sunday to Thursday 5pm to 7am. You get 4 "weekends" off although you have to come in Sunday night and likely spend all Friday sleeping. This is because ACGME only allows 5 night float days in a row. But you are also working minimum 14 hours per shift instead of 12.

Also, most programs usually have a didactics day that messes things up a bit. On this day, 7am to 12pm is usually "protected time" meaning you go to lecture or training and you are not responsible for floor stuff. However, you may have to start rounding earlier on this day to stay on top of things and/or stay later after 12pm in order to catch up. If you're on night float, you still go to didactics after your night shift but are allowed to leave earlier, at 9am or 10am, for example, because of ACGME rules that mandate 8 hours off between shifts.

Hope this clarifies things. It's complicated.

 

[soundofwonder]

OP is probably a troll but I like explaining things so here it goes:

It depends if your program uses a night float system or a call system. My program is night float. We work 28 day blocks and switch services thereafter. We get 4 of 28 days off per ACGME rules. So it works out like this:

M-F juniors arrive at 6am, sign out at 5pm, leave around 6pm usually. Seniors arrive a little later (630) and leave earlier (515) unless operating. Most programs seem to start at 5am. However, they also end earlier than mine does. We never end earlier and often time stay past sign out. Example: This week I have stayed until 7pm and 10pm on different days. We tend to get a lot of add on cases through the ED that go late.

Sat/Sun x 2: arrive at 7am, sign out at 7pm. Most programs do this differently: one weekend you work a 24 Friday (7a to 7a), off Saturday, and a 12 Sunday (7a to 7p) and then the other weekend you work Saturday 24 hour 7a to 7p. Either way, you still end up working 24 hours on 2 weekends per month, weekend being defined as friday evening to sunday evening.

Other Sat/Sun x2: off

The advantage of night float is you get two golden weekends pretty consistently.

The disadvantage if you have to work nights, usually 2 to 3 blocks a year. This usually involves working Sunday to Thursday 5pm to 7am. You get 4 "weekends" off although you have to come in Sunday night and likely spend all Friday sleeping. This is because ACGME only allows 5 night float days in a row. But you are also working minimum 14 hours per shift instead of 12.

Also, most programs usually have a didactics day that messes things up a bit. On this day, 7am to 12pm is usually "protected time" meaning you go to lecture or training and you are not responsible for floor stuff. However, you may have to start rounding earlier on this day to stay on top of things and/or stay later after 12pm in order to catch up. If you're on night float, you still go to didactics after your night shift but are allowed to leave earlier, at 9am or 10am, for example, because of ACGME rules that mandate 8 hours off between shifts.

Hope this clarifies things. It's complicated.

Thank you for responding and I can assure you I am not a troll. lol I'm genuinely interested as I want to become a surgeon in the future and was interested in doing a master's program/graduate studies at the same time as residency, but seeing from the schedule you posted, it does not look very practical...

 

[AsianPersuasion]

Typically 12-14 hrs days, 6 days a week. Sprinkle in some night float. Every day is busy, every day is an emergency, every day you wanna cry. But at the same you're really happy because at the end of all this, you're going to be badass surgeon. That's what I keep telling myself, atleast.

 

[doyouhaveaflag]

I'm not a gen surg resident, I'm plastics, but I've done several general surgery rotations. Our gen surg program has a night float system that people typically spend 1 month in per year. Interns typically come in between 5 and 5:30am depending on your pre-rounding efficiency/patient census. Interns get sign out from the night float at 6am followed by rounds. First start cases are 7:15am. You sign back out to night float at 6pm but depending on the service you may stay until 7 or 8pm (sometimes later) tidying things up.

You round one weekend day per week (so you get 4 days off per month) and take weekend call where you cross cover a bunch of different services twice per month or so. One of those weekend calls is usually overnight to cover the night float's day off. It sucks to cross cover because you carry 6 pagers and don't know any of the patients but that's how you get to go home after rounds/notes/floor work on your other weekend days that you're not on call, so it's a tradeoff.

 

[Hangry]

Thank you for responding and I can assure you I am not a troll. lol I'm genuinely interested as I want to become a surgeon in the future and was interested in doing a master's program/graduate studies at the same time as residency, but seeing from the schedule you posted, it does not look very practical...

If you go to an academic 7 year program you can get a masters/do graduate work and research during your 2 research years. But correct, you cannot do graduate work on top of your clinical duties during residency, that would be insane.

 

[evilbooyaa]

The disadvantage if you have to work nights, usually 2 to 3 blocks a year. This usually involves working Sunday to Thursday 5pm to 7am. You get 4 "weekends" off although you have to come in Sunday night and likely spend all Friday sleeping. This is because ACGME only allows 5 night float days in a row. But you are also working minimum 14 hours per shift instead of 12.


Hope this clarifies things. It's complicated.

Is the bolded a recent thing? During night float my intern year we worked Sunday through Friday night (into Saturday morning), then returned Sunday night. Technically 36 hours 'off' but you were at the hospital 7 days a week.

 

[DoctwoB]

Is the bolded a recent thing? During night float my intern year we worked Sunday through Friday night (into Saturday morning), then returned Sunday night. Technically 36 hours 'off' but you were at the hospital 7 days a week.

I’ve never heard of that either. Our night float works 12 on 2 off.

 

[Kuratz]

Prelim Surgery intern going to Rads at non-trauma center community program

Get in 4:45 for 5am signout
5-6 preround/prep notes
6-7 round with senior residents or fellow (midlevel in at 6, senior at 6:30)
7-8 conference while seniors round with attendings
8-5 either OR (esp if categorical) or orders/consults/pages.
Sign out 5-5:30.
6 days a week.
2 months of night float.

It’s not terrible as a non-surgeon since rounding is quick, the pathology is interesting, allowed to do plenty of procedures, and usually things are wrapped up by 10 so then just wait for consults and pages. 50% of the non-OR days have a decent amount of downtime to study for Step 3 or browse reddit. However, I’m sure a busier academic/trauma center is much, much busier during the day.

Gets better with seniority in the mornings but the upper levels often stay late to operate. I have stayed later than 5:30 only a couple times if a patient is actively sick.

5-8 years of this would suck donkey balls, but one year is much better than endless rounding and notes in IM. You gotta love to cut. Even at what could only be described as a “chill”, “lifestyle” program the seniors look exhausted and beat down. Some wouldn’t trade it for anything despite the hours while I guarantee some would switch into rads/anes etc in a heartbeat. Make sure you know what your true priorities are and it’ll work out.

 

[Jolie South]

Is the bolded a recent thing? During night float my intern year we worked Sunday through Friday night (into Saturday morning), then returned Sunday night. Technically 36 hours 'off' but you were at the hospital 7 days a week.

When I was an intern, we worked 6 on and had a 24 hour awkward period off. Regardless of conversion to days or nights. It was miserable.

 

[DarkHorizon]

I am ortho, schedule varied in residency depending on the year. Intern year on ortho, started around 445-5 am, but always done by 5 pm. PGY2 year was the worst, q4 call, started at 5am, most days were there past 6-7 pm, call days were even longer, occasionally operating through the night. We were a small program that had home call, so no post call days. Things got better, showed up at 6 as a senior resident, and 630 as a fellow.

Also, there’s no residency in the US that has 9-5 hours, even dermatology residents start at 730.

 

[Dares Dareson]

Is the bolded a recent thing? During night float my intern year we worked Sunday through Friday night (into Saturday morning), then returned Sunday night. Technically 36 hours 'off' but you were at the hospital 7 days a week.

I guess the rule is actually 6 nights in a row. I suppose I'm fortunate my program limits it to 5. I know my home program did too. We do Sunday night to Thursday night and Friday night to Sunday day is covered by day shift during their 2 call weekends; one shift Saturday 24 and another shift Friday night and Sunday day. Also, we would likely violate duty hours with 6 nights.