7.7) How many hours do interns/residents work?
Description
This article is from the Medical Education FAQ, by eric@wilkinson.com (Eric P. Wilkinson, M.D.)with numerous contributions by others.
7.7) How many hours do interns/residents work?
Intern and resident hours vary very widely depending on specialty,
hospital, and within hospitals between different departments. Some
specialties are well-known for their less demanding hours during
residency (and often afterwards as well). These "lifestyle" fields
include radiology, anesthesiology, and physical medicine and
rehabilitation (physiatry). Specialties whose residencies are
reputed for difficulty and lack of sleep are general surgery and
obstetrics and gynecology. Most of the other specialties fall
somewhere in between.
Surgical interns and often internal medicine interns routinely work
100+ hours a week, with some months requiring a brutal every other
night call schedule. This means, for instance, that you go to work
on Monday morning (around 5-6 am) work all day, stay in the hospital
all night (with varying amounts of sleep but usually 2-3 hours),
work the following day as well (hoping that you may get out early),
then go home for around 6 pm only to repeat the whole cycle again
the next day. On months such as these, if you have a spouse,
children, or pets, you won't see them. You can do the math to
figure out how many hours per week that amounts to. Most call
schedules for intern years run either every third or every fourth
night on call.
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