Of course, what I am doing right now isn't exactly difficult either. 4th year of medical school is very different than the first three years. In year 1 and 2 you spend a lot of time sitting in the classroom, doing stuff in labs, and studying. Lots and lots of studying. Then 3rd year comes. You aren't in the classroom anymore and it's quite an adjustment because your time is no longer your own. I regularly woke up at 4 am and got home after 5pm. Plus there are the days and weekends on call, which was fun (sometimes) on OB/Gyn and Surgery because night is when you see the emergent stuff - emergency surgeries, trauma cases, and that sort of thing. I was pretty much in a constant state of tiredness during third year with the exception of my psych rotation. I almost considered becoming a psychiatrist for that very reason!
4th year is very different - we like to call it "vacation year". It's the little eye of the hurricane that lets us remember what it feels like to be a normal person after 3 years of studying and working long hours (my record in one week was 110 hours during my trauma surgery rotation) but before starting residency. In the last few months I have not woken up before 6am, attendings expect that I will be gone a lot to travel for interviews, and I get to choose which electives I take. My last two week rotation consisted of showing up to watch a 1 hour powerpoint presentation. Yeah, that was it. This year is heaven. Honestly, I'm not sure if it is a blessing or a curse. I'm enjoying it for sure but it might make it that much harder to go back to working my butt off come July.
So tomorrow is back to work. I made the best of today by getting a lot of errands done. A friend of mine is having a baby next month and I spent part of today gathering supplies and making this for her:
Adorable right? This is exactly the kind of thing I didn't have time for the first three years of medical school.
It's so cute. Did you find it on Pinterest? I've seen pictures of something like this circulating around.
ReplyDeleteAt least they can't make you work 110 hour weeks as a resident, right? Amazing that they can get away with this with med students....
I found it this summer but I can't remember where! I decided to save the link for the next time I wanted to make something like this.
ReplyDeleteThey can work us that much in residency - it just (just, lol) has to average to no more than 80 hours/week over 4 weeks.
Wow, that's an interesting way around the limit, huh?
ReplyDelete