Night Float v. Q4 Call

[alison]

First, I don't think NF is a reason to not rank a program. Both Q4 and NF suck in their respective ways. 24-hour in-house calls have gotten much MUCH more difficult over the years for dh, so Q anything is rough. It's either age or burnout, or a combination of both!

Dh can sleep during the day very easily, and enjoys working at night, because things are less hectic with fewer people around. NF is good for him, but I miss him at night. More of a selfish thing than anything else.

[Cumberland]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

The one benefit to NF is that you get it done and out of the way, and then only have to deal with minimal call for the rest of the year. That being said, i wouldnt rank a program based on NF unless they have months and month of it.

Our schedule on NF was DH would go in around 5pm, come home around 7am, sleep til noon or 1p, then we would spend more QT together than we would get if he was on a day schedule. But by the end of it he would just be haggard from sleep deprivation. Other residents we knew would sleep from 7a til 4p then go into work. That makes it horrible for the family.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

I would prefer NF, 24 hour call hits much harder (at least in our experience). I also liked that DH was free during the day to run errands (dry cleaning, car inspection, etc.) because I was working at the time.

I agree that I don't think I would let either influence the rank. The schedule is not written in stone and can change a year or two down the road.

[migirl]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

Night float is easy on the resident and hard on the family. Depending on your work schedule you might not get to see him at all when he's on NF, the whole to ships passing in the night deal. I much prefer Q4 to NF.

I also wouldn't let that aspect of it affect your rank list. There are lots of other variables that would make or break a program for me.

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

They both suck.

DH does a lot of nights - gets home at around 8am, sleeps from 9am til 5pm then eats and goes back in again. And don't forget the days of "preparing himself" for the night schedule, i.e. sleeping in until noon on a day off. He really needs his sleep. But when he had a lot of call last year it was always 30 hour shifts. I found that a long, long time to be by myself. And he was (understandably I guess) a grumpy ass all the time. Fun all around.

Don't put too much weight on it.

[GrayMatterWife]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

I actually prefer night float to ANY other type of schedule. Here, the NSG R2s and R3s do 2-3 months of nighfloat per academic year. That means they work Sunday from 5:30 AM-Monday 11:00 AM (give-or-take), then work Tuesday-Thursday nights, from approximately 6:00 PM to the next morning, around 11:00 AM. It's awesome because (1) I actually get to SEE DH from 5:00 - 6:00 PM (we NEVER get to eat dinner together when he's on day shift) and then we can walk him to work, so DS gets to see him and hang out a little. Plus, he's then off ALL FRIDAY afternoon--I often try to cut out from work early so we can hang out and see a movie. We get more family time, more "us" time...

It's regularized hours--much, much more predictable than when he's on dayshift.

He doesn't get nightfloat anymore, though, since he's an R4. I miss it.

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

NF has been hard on me (more so than him perhaps) because I can literally go the whole week and not even see my bf. I usually got home right after he left. He seemed to think it was going to be a good thing when he was applying for residencies though. I don't know what it would be like to be Q4...I guess he would be even more sleep deprived.

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

DH and I both hate night float, he had it during his internship year and it was hard. It was hard for me because I went a long time without seeing him, we went weeks with out talking b/c I was at work when he was home and when I got home he was at work. He said it was hard on him b/c he had to alter his sleep schedule so much and had Thursday's off so he had a hard time deciding whether to sleep day or night on that day off. The positive about night float is you always get alot of calls over at one time but I always remember dreading the night float rotations.

[mommax3]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

They both really stink, but if you have little ones and are home during the day, night float is far worse. I thought it would be great, but soon changed my tune.

DH did night float for 2 months each year after intern year. The shift was from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. (supposedly) but he rarely got home before 8:30. Also, he had to stay until noon on Thursdays for conference and until noon on Fridays for his continuity clinic, so he didn't come home on Thursdays.....just slept for four hours or so and went back to work. He was a zombie when he got home on Fridays....usually went straight to bed and slept til Saturday morning....and then Sunday it started all over again. And all it did for the rest of the year (when he wasn't spending 2 months at Ft. Hood, that is) was exempt him from weeknight call at *one* of the hospitals.....he still had call on the weekends and on surgical/onc patients at the other hospital. And that was Q3, btw.

Actually, you shouldn't listen to me at all because I think we had the worst of both worlds! And as an attending, his schedule is Q2 weeknights (although granted, it is home call) and Q3 weekends, so he is obviously warped in some fundamental way. I will stand by my opinion that night float isn't all it's cracked up to be, though.

[v-girl]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

I hate night float. It is evil. But then, I hate residency.

[spotty_dog]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

My husband doesn't do so well sleeping during the day, and the effects are cumulative. So q4 call (sometimes get to sleep at night, then take a nap the next day, then start making it up with nighttime sleep for several nights before you have to be on call again) is in many ways much better for him than a week or two or a month of nights. (Better for me too, since he has whole afternoons off post-call if he gets significant sleep while on call; and he's still on a day schedule for his "real" days off. Plus I *hate* doing housework while someone's trying to sleep, so I get *so* far behind when he has a lot of nights in a row.) And yet they both suck; and yet they're both doable, so yeah. Not too much sense in focusing on that I wouldn't guess.

[ides]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

Both suck. Dh's program does both. PG1 & PG2 you have 2 months of night float a year. PGY3 you have backup call and weekend call then in PGY4 & PGY5 you have Q4 in house cheif call.

I hate night float because of the backward schedule - awake when I'm asleep. It's also a different kind of work stress - in charge of patients you don't know and double the patients.

I hate call because its a forever shift and leaves me two full days of no dh.

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

We have no children and are older [DH is late 40s] and for him - night float was the single worst rotation. Horrible, horrible, horrible. He was no fan of call, but he was a mess during and one rotation after night float. I actually am more of a night person and adjusted my schedule so I could sleep with him when he got home. Another guy in his residency class loved it - go figure.

Honestly, it really depends on the person. Is your partner a night person?

[Thirteen]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

So far, he's only done Q4 (but no night float).
Night float sounds pretty brutal... :/

[alison]

Re: Night Float v. Q4 Call

I truly think that it gets harder on your body as you age. I know that I can't pull all-nighters like I used to in college.

Dh used to be fine on a 30-hour shift, but now is half dead after a long day. Or maybe it's just that residency beats the crap out of you...