I'm at a point where I ask "when is it gonna end!!!???!!"
i seem to always get the rotations that have the longest hours........ with the worst hours-to-teaching ratio and lots of paperwork and senseless crap

i've wasted so many hours at the hospital, when i should be home studying for the usmle. Countless test questions I can't answer because of time I lack to study.


there should be a 20 hour weekly cap on rotations.

spending 8 hours (11 hours with commute) a day running around the hospital, only to learn a tidbit here and there is a pull-my-hair-out waste of time.

by the time you get home, and after you eat dinner, you're exhausted and can't study effectively.

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MS4
PGY(-1)

reminds me of surgery, where you're just a tool to hold the retractors and push the stretchers around.

You can't do surgical procedures (obviously), so why the hell do they make you stay at the hospital the whole day?


you say- bring a book and study during down time. that works. but sometimes you actually do spend your whole day doing completely POINTLESS chasing of patients, data, etc.

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MS4
PGY(-1)

Would you mind telling us what hospitals you have rotated at so we know which ones to avoid?

GSchneid you are hilarious. Please do tell us what hospitals those are since they all are different. I suggest that when you get home you take an hour power nap and then rise shower, drink a cup of java and hit the books. I used to work full time (couldn't leave my job) then have to go full time classes in the evening and have to study as well, have a kid and hubbie to feed so you have to manage your time. I would just take a nap, shower drink coffee and it felt like another day and then I would hit the books again. It is extremely hard but you are going to need to reach for that inner strenght because residency will be hell for sure and they don't care if you are exhausted, you are like a fireman rise and shine any time of night and your mental acuity cannot falter. For some reason it seems all codes happen from 2-5am just when you are hitting that REM. How do I know this information I was a hospital administrator for 5 years that had to pull straight 24-48 hours right along with the residents. I had an office with a bed in it on resident quarters. I would have to respond to all codes just like they did and then inform the family of the patients demise and or travel to the morgue for unwrapping of bodies for identification purposes (mostly gunshot wounds and or stabbings).

I say find a center and try to get the emotions under wraps because you will drain yourself in the process thinking about the negative aspects of the rotation and won't have any energy left for the good stuff (studying). I hope this helps.

Good Luck

i think there should be a seperate thread for a list of good and bad hospitals....

Good idea punisher but will you really have a choice after you are already there. I don't think that once you start a rotation you can leave or is that possible? I say make the best of it. Medicine is not an easy task and not for the light hearted there will way too many instances where you have to rise to unpleasant occasions. There will be times when you are dead tired but still researching things and ruling out others to make sure you make the right admitting diagnosis and your attending does not look at you like a complete idiot. So whatever little you learn in a rotation take it and run with it. It will eventually come in handy for residency.

I was actually allowed to "1st assist" on many surgical procedures (ie. perform the procedure from incision to closure). Mostly they were inguinal hernias, but I got to do some others like a toe amp, bka, and even a huge portion of a colectomy. That made surgery pretty awesome.

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NEOUCOM M3

Transfered from SMU to NEOUCOM (LCME SCHOOL!)

Do your homework on the medical facility. Some good, some ok, some not so good. My surgery site has been nothing like the OP. This one has been mostly OR time, with some clinic, and minimal floorwork. Very active involvement in surgey cases (read: actually taking part, not just retracting). Work hard, and the LORs will follow.

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SMU SOM--4th yr. Nov/Dec - Family Med - FH. Jan -Infectious Disease -FH. Feb-Cardiology-FH. St Louis: Mar-Burn Unit. Apr-Neuro/the end!

Maybe I"m crazy, but I always get disappointed if I have to work less than 40 hrs a week. I'm in medical school!!!! I had one rotation that was almost 80 hrs a week. I still went home and studied.

The rest of our life is not going to be easy either unless you go into Derm.

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"Don't Tase Me BRO!" I will not tase, but I will infract. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xzkd_m4ivmc
There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--Tim Tebow lives in Florida. www.timtebowfacts.com
B.S. Exercise Physiology
Univeristy of Florida 2003

3rd year and all boards: DONE
4th year: in progress

UF Tim that is the spirit. There is nothing easy about medicine and or mastering the art of it. It requires time and lots of patience even when you have none left in your body. Whatever we learned will be put to good use later on during residency and in your private and or hospital jobs respectively. I am not trying to be a hard person but we have to give patients our best even when we don't feel our best. Perhaps that is why the US Healthcare has gone down the drain because we have lost some of the passion of practicing medicine. Everything is not as perfect as they make it seem on the ER shows.

Let's keep the spirit up and working less than 40 hours a week during residency and rotations is not realistic at all. Tim for chief resident in the very near future and that is who I want to be learning under someone who gives their all and then keeps on giving. You don't want a doc giving up on your chest compressions because it is taking too long.