How much free time did you have in residency?

[jb24]

Were you able to continue doing things you enjoy outside of work? Can you still game while a resident? Working out? Hanging out with family/friends outside of medicine?

In med school I was able to do pretty much everything I enjoyed on most rotations and felt pretty okay. There were times that were shitty, but for the most part things were fine and I felt truly balanced. 

Just thinking about life after July 1st.

[mdlifecrisis]

Depends on the residency

[bearded frog]

1 hour ago, jb24 said:

Were you able to continue doing things you enjoy outside of work? Can you still game while a resident? Working out? Hanging out with family/friends outside of medicine?

In med school I was able to do pretty much everything I enjoyed on most rotations and felt pretty okay. There were times that were shitty, but for the most part things were fine and I felt truly balanced. 

Just thinking about life after July 1st.

Yes, unless you're in neurosurgery, until your exam year and then no.

[jb24]

30 minutes ago, mdlifecrisis said:

Depends on the residency

True. Would love to hear experiences of residents in various specialties. Surgical, non surgical, "ROAD", family...

[bellejolie]

Agree would love to hear about this too! Incoming fm  

[Persephone]

I think anyone would get a more accurate estimate of what free time is like from residents ahead of them in their specific program. Even between different FM programs there can be a lot of variation, depending on how service-based a residency program is or what combination of off service rotations you have, as well as call frequency of course. If you already have a contact from your residency program, I'd reach out to them to ask for their impression.

[bearded frog]

I can be more specific about peds, I imagine other non-surgical royal college residencies would be similar. It will vary from program to program in terms of how call works and if its inpatient/outpatient focused. In general, your first year is really busy since you usually do a lot of call and inpatient rotations and everything is new so you're doing a lot of prep stuff and late days. However for the most part once you leave the hospital your time is your own to do whatever. In second year you may do more sub-specialty electives which for the most part are less intensive than CTU and the call requirements go down (or shift to a night-float system), and by third year you basically know what you're doing and either less call or just the scheduled night float, although it could be busy if you're gunning a sub-specialty since the PSM is in 3rd year. In 4th year you basically start studying for the royal college board exams a year ahead and try and figure out what you're gonna do after residency and find a job and you have absolutely no free time whatsoever. (Incidentally this actually worked out relatively well for my year since covid restricted everything there was nothing else really that we could be doing and so way less FOMO studying on Saturday nights lol)

[ACHQ]

2 hours ago, bearded frog said:

 (Incidentally this actually worked out relatively well for my year since covid restricted everything there was nothing else really that we could be doing and so way less FOMO studying on Saturday nights lol)

Hahaha I guess covid allowed it to work in your favor. When I was studying for my Internal Medicine RC exam in 2019, our osce was right during the raptors championship run... needless to say I probably spent more time watching the raps (and attending the parade) then osce prep... but hey it worked out!

 

with re:time in residency, I can comment on Internal medicine (finished Residency in 2020 so the scars are still fresh ahah)

 

PGY1- Busy because your on CTU a lot. That means 1:4 call. Most programs (AFAIK) don’t have a float system for the PGY1s, so they do regular 26 hour call. Most places have 4-5 blocks (if not more) of CTU in PGY1. That leaves 8-9 blocks of IM subspecialities. Depending on the program, a chunk of those blocks might be in ICU, or cardio, or nephro (or all the above), which also have decent call requirements, between 1:4-1:5 (although generally people find them less busy than CTU). Depending on the program, Most IM subspecialty blocks outside of those listed above will probably have you fly in for GIM call (although some might give you that subspecialty call), either way the call req are between 1:5-1:7. 

PGY2- probably the busiest year clinically for IM. You do between 3-4 blocks of CTU as an SMR, means much more responsibility. You also start doing SMR call, which is infinitely more difficult and stressful than a JMR call. Tbh if anything the GIM SMR is probably the busiest resident during the night in the whole hospital outside of the pandemic (where I’m sure icu residents and fellows were getting massacred). I did the traditional 1:4 while on CTU SMR, but most places have a float system which is better on the body and psyche, and probably more realistic to what exist in practice. The other blocks are again ICU, CCU (which take up 3-4 blocks, again 1:4-1:5 call) and your left with 5-6 subspecialty blocks which the call requirements can be 1:5-1:7. 
 

PGY3: busiest year because of the RC exam + subspecialty CaRMS. Less busy if you just want to do the 4 year GIM, but even then this year is a complete wash. Once you form your group and start studying it doesn’t really end. The call req are less frequent but still present and still busy. 
 

Assuming a normal world (IE non-covid) you still have time as a resident to do other things, but definitely not much. Post call is usually spent sleeping, and other days where you are “off” you still spend sometime reading/studying. The RC exam year is a year basically where you have extremely little time for anything else as stated by others.