What to expect during M3 year

Do any veterans remember the third year of Med School? and can offer any wisdom to those who are just entering it? My boyfriend starts in just a couple days. I actually start my classes for school on July 8 and am taking some recreational classes all during summer so that will keep me pretty occupied as well.
Any advice on how to make sure we squeeze the time in for each other. With being on call and him trying to get sleep and relaxation time in when he can.
Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to offer there tips and everything else.

My husband just finnished 3rd year. It was up and down depending on what service he was on. We found he had lots of free time on many of the medicine rotations (start at 8am, end early afternoon) but almost none on the surgery rotations (only home to sleep) . Some rotations have no weekend work or call, so although you can't plan ahead really we found a few hours a week and sometimes whole weekends to spend together.

One thing we did which made it easier on me was that we set a standing date, once a week that we stuck to. What we did was go out to our favorite coffee shop every Saturday morning for an hour or two. This way even though we didn't always get a lot of time together, it was regular and at tolerable intervals.

Another thing we did was use a text pager instead of the usual number only. It only cost a few more dollars a year and this way I could send him notes and messages throughout the day from any computer with web access.

Good luck to both of you! It will be challending and a bit strange, but rewarding

Fun stuff, Surgery is the first rotation and then he has OB/GYN.. so the rest of the year after those two seem like they might be a little better.
Thanks for your advice I'll see if he can commit to something like that.

DH has peds first and from the info he has so far it really doesn't seem horrible. My strategy so far is to think he will be on a surgery rotation EVERY rotation. That way when he gets some time at home its a really nice surprise I don't know if it will work, but that is my plan. I'm really excited for him, he starts tomorrow!!

[Liz2254]

My boyfriend just took Step 1 on Monday (he's not as happy as the rest of your husbands, from what I've been reading), yesterday we did a mini-break day trip to DC and today he's taking 'Books to Bedside.' He starts his peds rotation on Tuesday. I'm expecting some changes but I'm really hoping that he'll enjoy the pace and seeing things in person instead of reading them in a book. If he's happy it'll be a lot easier to handle the change, although I'm sure in a few weeks I'll change my opinion on that. It's been nice having him around so I've tried to fill in a lot of activities in my anticipated free time.

[bony00]

Third year was had its highs and lows. I was pretty busy myself, I am a graduate student. Surgery was horrible because he left really in the morning and was sleep deprived and not a happy camper. Other rotations like Psychiatry, Family Practice he really enjoyed. Medicine he didn't like at all. We basically would do stuff together whenever both of our schedule permitted. But usually I had to schedule around his schedule.