It's All Relative
Funny how all things are relative and how easily one can lose perspective.
Some of the more seasoned derm residents have been complaining about having to drive to the hospital on their weekend call. Now, having just finished a year of internal medicine, and knowing the strenuous call schedules of my classmates who are not in Dermatology, I have NO complaints about the call schedule. Depending on different programs, Dermatology call usually consists of being on call one week or one weekend at a time, and the call is rotated among the residents so that you're really on call every few weeks. When you aren't on call, every weekend is off (SO NICE), and work is usually wrapped up by about 6pm at the latest. So this schedule is incredibly better than most residency programs, and most of us new residents can't really relate to people who complain about our schedule. However, we've been warned that as time passes, people tend to forget that we have an awesome schedule and that's when the complaining starts.
It's easy to see how this happens. If you are on neurosurgery call with 30 hour days every two nights or ICU call every 3rd day, just switching to a every 4th day call is a blessing. Or if you work six out of seven days (most residents), having two days off a week seems too good to be true, but think of all the folks that work Monday to Friday with 2 days weekends who think the weekends are too short and complain about going back to work on Monday. So this post is to serve as a reminder to myself (and a slap upside the head) of how things used to be (and could be) if and when the complaining starts.
Some of the more seasoned derm residents have been complaining about having to drive to the hospital on their weekend call. Now, having just finished a year of internal medicine, and knowing the strenuous call schedules of my classmates who are not in Dermatology, I have NO complaints about the call schedule. Depending on different programs, Dermatology call usually consists of being on call one week or one weekend at a time, and the call is rotated among the residents so that you're really on call every few weeks. When you aren't on call, every weekend is off (SO NICE), and work is usually wrapped up by about 6pm at the latest. So this schedule is incredibly better than most residency programs, and most of us new residents can't really relate to people who complain about our schedule. However, we've been warned that as time passes, people tend to forget that we have an awesome schedule and that's when the complaining starts.
It's easy to see how this happens. If you are on neurosurgery call with 30 hour days every two nights or ICU call every 3rd day, just switching to a every 4th day call is a blessing. Or if you work six out of seven days (most residents), having two days off a week seems too good to be true, but think of all the folks that work Monday to Friday with 2 days weekends who think the weekends are too short and complain about going back to work on Monday. So this post is to serve as a reminder to myself (and a slap upside the head) of how things used to be (and could be) if and when the complaining starts.
posted by Aisling at 3:14 PM PERMALINK
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