FM residency work hours

[MaudeB]

Hello! I would love to get more info on the work hours per week for FM residency! I understand this is site and rotation dependent but I would appreciate to have a general idea about the kind of hours FM residents are working!

Thank you so much!

[frenchpress]

2 hours ago, MaudeB said:

Hello! I would love to get more info on the work hours per week for FM residency! I understand this is site and rotation dependent but I would appreciate to have a general idea about the kind of hours FM residents are working!

Thank you so much!

It really is so site and rotation dependent, hard to generalize. Different sites even at the same university can differ immensely in number of weeks on different rotation, workload at hospitals within that site, etc. Also often differs a lot between urban sites (where you tend to have more in-hospital call) and rural sites (where you often have at lot more evening/home-call, at least for off service rotations).

I’m an FM resident on family medicine right now in a semi-rural semi-urban program and my hours are primarily weekdays in office (8 to anywhere between 2 and 6pm). Within family med I also have weeks where I am doing hospitalist, which requires weekend rounding (i end up on for 10 days straight with 1-2 nights of home call, and several evenings where I stay late to do admissions), and weeks where I am doing GP obstetrics (where I am basically on call for 24 hrs x 7 days straight until i tell my preceptors I am exhausted and can’t stand it anymore and then I take a post-call day). So right now I’d say it varies between 32 and 70 hours a week, depending on the week. Not including study time, reading etc. at home.
 

Off service rotations in my program are primarily in the hospital (CTU, CCU, surgery, ortho, etc), and those tend to be anywhere from 6-8am starts and 4-6pm finish with 24 hour call up to 1 every in 4 days, with a post-call day afterwards. Thankfully only about a quarter of my two years are rotations like this, and a few like palliative tend to have easier hours. Amount of off-service you do will vary between programs. I recall from CaRMS some FM programs i looked at did more than half of the two years on off-service. 

[MaudeB]

Thanks so much @frenchpress!! 

Wow, that GP obstetric schedule must be exhausting!!

So if I understand well, the CARMS descriptions give information on call requirements, on service and off services rotations, etc? 

Thanks!! 

[frenchpress]

7 minutes ago, MaudeB said:

Thanks so much @frenchpress!! 

Wow, that GP obstetric schedule must be exhausting!!

So if I understand well, the CARMS descriptions give information on call requirements, on service and off services rotations, etc? 

Thanks!! 

I am just starting, but so far while it definitely can be exhausting, the preceptors are flexible and we don’t have deliveries everyday, so it seems to work well for our site. Different sites within my program do it differently based on how busy their service is. 

The CaRMS descriptions vary in their level of detail. I found they usually had descriptions of how many weeks were on service vs off-service. But the descriptions for other practical things were often vague and only cited the provincial union agreement maximums (e.g. Max 1:4 call). I found talking to residents from the different programs and attending the info sessions during CaRMS more helpful to get a lot of those details. 

[MaudeB]

@frenchpress, thank you, this is very helpful! I did not know there were info sessions during CaRMS, this is interesting!

[frenchpress]

21 minutes ago, MaudeB said:

@frenchpress, thank you, this is very helpful! I did not know there were info sessions during CaRMS, this is interesting!

During covid there were virtual info sessions because CaRMS interviews were remote. When CaRMS was in person it used to be that there would be open houses and opportunities to meet residents and programs at most interviews. By the time you get there it could be different, but I highly suspect CaRMS will stay remote, and I personally felt like I got a lot more info from it than I would have in person.  

[sterntaler]

You can find a calendar of virtual events here: https://www.canprepp.ca/events

Right now the events are mostly for the upcoming IM subspecialty match, but you can expect to see townhalls for the R1 match starting in October. Some programs will host additional (non-listed) info sessions for applicants who get an interview, as well, but it's always a good idea to gather some info about the programs before the apps are due.