Chief year

[KCwife]

I have a stupid question. This came up in conversation with a fellow med spouse.... "if he does a chief year" ??!!!???!!

It is now my understanding that non-surgical specialties don't have a chief year.....? Is that correct? All surgical specialties have them built in, so why not the other specialties?

Just wondering...

the way i understand it is it's built in for surgical specialties and EVERYONE will be chief at some point, but non-surgical specialties it's an extra year that can be done but doesn't have to. It's a CV builder for non-surgical specialites - and extra time. I think most only pursue it if they're planning to stay in academic medicine.

in pathology it's not extra, but not built in, either. at dh's program 2 people were selected for the cheif duties in addition to their regular duties.

who knows why medicine is the way medicine is.

It's not a stupid question. It's not consistent across all of medicine and I think it varies from specialty to specialty (or surgical vs non-surgical as Jenn said).

There are chief years in non-surgical specialties. With derm, the chief year happens within the final year of training with one of the senior residents as chief (duties could be split among more than one resident, I suppose). There is no additional year. With Internal Medicine, it was an additional year after the 3rd year of training. At DH's IM program, there were 4 chiefs selected during second year. It happened early so they could adjust fellowship application accordingly. I think that some places treat it as an extra program year (pgy) and others treat them as a clinical instructor or something like that (may mean different pay). I think pediatrics is the same, not sure what others do it this way. Like Jenn said, it is good for the CV and doing fellowships or academic medicine.

In radiology I think it can vary from place to place. My husband was chief during his third (of 4 years) on top of other normal duties.

[spotty_dog]

I think the way it works in our EM program is that one senior (PGY-3) is chosen to do chief duties, and they pull in an extra $100 or so a month for the privilege.

[SuzySunshine]

I think in some cases it also depends on the program. We have a friend that finished his ortho residency a few years ago and he was "selected" as a chief - not everyone "got" to do it.

Here they all do in neurosurgery - they just rotate, there are 2 at a time.

[Vishenka69]

DH's program works similar to what Jenn described about pathology. Two people were selected to be chiefs during their last year. Although they may have some extra administrative duties, they don't take any weekend call during this year.

Yep, depends on the specialty as well as the program. In DH's EM program, chief year was an additional year of training. In other programs, a senior resident is selected to act as "chief" during third year.

[mommax3]

I have always wondered this myself, but had never asked.

Sally

[DrWahoo]

My DH who is doing Internal medicine, explained that there is something called an associate chief which is done the last year and then there is a Chief resident which is done an additional year

[Stella]

Can I ask a more naive question and get some more info on just what exactly "chief year" is?? (We're still so new!)

Based on what everyone else said, I'll throw in that it depends on specialty and program. In my mind, responsibilities could include doing the schedules for all residents, scheduling lectures and education sort of stuff, being the liaison between residents and faculty, doing orientation for incoming residents, etc. That is the sort of stuff DH does.

there ar about 12-14 residents on SO programme and in the 4th year 3 of them are chief residents on top of normal duties its my understanding its not an extra year.

[DCJenn]

In peds, at least in the Army, Chief year happens after the residency is completed. It is a nice CV builder. It's a competitive thing, and several people apply for it every year. A friend of ours stayed and did Chief year during my husband's 3rd year of residency. She was responsible for all of the scheduling (on-call, leave, etc) plus she was the go between between the Army program and the AF program. I'm pretty sure that given the choice, she wouldn't do it again- they wore her ragged.

Jenn

[SuzySunshine]

As you can see it varies very much by program/specialty. At my DH's program there are three in his class during their last year they will rotate and there will be two chiefs/quarter. One is an administrative chief - he/she is in charge of the schedule. Both basically act as a staff member, they run their own service, they have their own junior resident (2nd year), all cases are staffed by a staff member but only in an advisory position. They get all cases that come in through the ER that are new patients, i.e. have never been seen in neurosurgery before.

Cheif quarters SUCK here - so the children, dog and I will be spending a lot of that year visiting other family members. 8) Luckily there are three of them and only 8 quarters so one of them will only do 2 quarters while the other 2 will do 3 - hopefully DH only does 2, though knowing him he'll volunteer.