Question regarding first year residency experience

[mommax3]

My husband did OB (before the 80 hr/wk rule ) and it was brutal all four years, really. His intern year was rough when he did the departmental rotations (gyn, gyn onc, labor and delivery, etc.) but as an intern, he also did some off-service rotations, like ambulatory medicine and ER, so that made for some nice months (except for his trauma surgery rotation )......SO 2nd year, when he was totally "owned" by the OB/Gyn dept., was actually worse than first year because there were no more "nice" months where he rotated outside of the department.

By the way, he worked in the same hospital as jloreine's husband, and two interns in his class crashed their cars driving after being on call.

DH finished residency in 2001 and worked an average of 100 hour weeks for four years.....maybe the fourth year averaged 90 hours a week, but that is as good as it got. I am so glad it is behind us.

Sally

[Vishenka69]

Reading the replies, I'm once again very happy that DH did not choose surgery of any kind. So far his anesthesia PGY-1 has been pretty good, he's only doing 1 night call a month and 1 long call (till about midnight) a week. He's not too crazy about the attendings in his program though, so he's been cranky about that. His prelim year was pretty easy (even though he was on call more often) but he was picking his first year based on ease and the anesthesia program based on quality. So far I think medical school was harder for us as a couple but that could be because I was at a different job and a lot more stressed.

[Cumberland]

We are in month 4 of OB intern year.

The first three months were clinic (9-5 m-f), ER ( 18 12 hr shifts in a month) and another clinic. This month is Gyn-onc which so far has been prerounds starting at 5am and home around 8pm. The first three months were heaven, and I was very spoiled. He is in his second week and I am home visiting my parents for the whole week- partially bc it is a holiday week for my work and partially bc I still pretty much dont know anyone and I get so lonely when he is gone all day.

All I can say is my main goal for when I get back is to work on my independence skills. It is hard to be broke and independent though- alot of the things I want to do require a babysitter in addition to class fees, etc. I am digressing here though so I will stop.

Thanks

a little delayed in response but just wanted to thank everyone who replied to my question. I think the most important thing I needed to hear is that what my boyfriend is feeling is quite normal... so I'm going to just keep on supporting him as best as I can, and try to be an optimist and hope that as his confidence level increases, stress/anxiety will go down. It sounds like quite the roller coaster ride and I admire all of you for hanging in, supporting your spouses, and supporting each other here on this site. Thanks again...

The 80-hour per week rule is averaged over 3 months, so it's entirely possible (and likely) to work 100+ hours on ward months and still be well within the 80 hour cap when those few outpatient months are figured in. It's definitely better than it historically had been, but I think it's still far too many hours. They may be fabulous men and women, but they're not super heroes no matter what they want to believe!

Stephanie (new to the site)