the 3*hr shift....

now as many may know and others may not...for about four years now there has been legislation that regulates the work hours for medical residents...now when i say regulates...i really mean provides guidelines that some follow, many do not, despite the appearance that they are followed on paper....including the 80 hour work week restriction with q3 call and blah blah blah. now just by saying you are "limiting" work hours to 80 a week is insane. if you do the math there are 24hours/day, seven days/week...that means there are 168hours in a full week. so technically our limit is just under half the hours in the total week. not so bad right! only half...that leaves the other half for things like...hhmmmm sleep. after the 80 hours you have 88 hours left....now if you consider sleeping daily...which doesn't always occur...and sleeping an average of 7hours/night....which is on the conservative side of sleep requirements for most people...then you are sleeping...hopefully....about 49hours of your time left from the 88hours. so then you have 39hours left. WOW....so much time!!! yeah right! now you have to also consider that the 80 hours doesn't include commute time and is more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule for work hours you end up with not much time for LIFE! now if you actually say you sleep for 8 hours/night then that leaves a whole 32hours for 'other'...maybe 5 of which are spent driving for many and another 6 or 7 doing such things as showering, brushing teeth, etc. so that leaves us with 20hours left. not to mention eating, cleaning, laundry, bills, and the other 'errands' of life...not much time left for things like having fun, exercise, cooking, etc.

now i challenge you to look at where your hours of the day and week go. and just see how much you spend on "life" and let me know if you are really expected to even consider having a "life" during residency!!!

***just a side note about hours...traditionally most people have worked 120hours/work during residency and although they will remain nameless...many surgical programs still work upwards of 100/120hours/week....at effectively minimum wage if you break things down by hour....how is this possible in a world where pilots, air traffic controllers, etc. have strict work hour limitations....??? we have people's lives in our hands as physicians yet this is the dirty little secret of medical training that the public doesn't really know about......just a note after sleeping for five hours after a 3*hour shift....so you know where i am coming from!