What’s Up With The Work Hours Claimed?

Saturday, January 19th 2008
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I’m surprised about all the hardcore numbers that fly around concerning hours worked. For some people there’s a lot of pride in being hardcore and claiming a lot of hours on the clock in sheet. This is, of course, especially true on surgical rotations.

But how accurate are some of these figures you see?

Now granted, I’m on the ’slow’ general surgery service but there are friends on the other county hospital team who are claiming 100+ hours/week for consecutive weeks. I’m sure it’s possible but…damn, I just don’t know what they’re doing.

I wanted to see if I could “stretch” my numbers. I haven’t taken any days off in the rotation so far and I’m using a liberal interpretation (e.g. on Wednesday I had some ‘free’ time between didactic sessions, which since I was using it to study up at the hospital I’ll count):

Sunday: 6am - 12am (Total Hours for Week: 18)
Monday: 12am - 10am (Total Hours for Week: 28)
Tuesday: 6am - 7pm (Total Hours for Week: 41)
Wednesday: 5am - 6pm (Total Hours for Week: 54)
Thursday: 5am - 4pm (Total Hours for Week: 65)
Friday: 5am - 12am (Total Hours for Week: 84)
Saturday: 12am - 8am (Total Hours for Week: 92)

Okay, that is as far as I can actually stretch it. I guess I am legitimately, conservatively above 80 hours but I also had some time off Friday afternoon but then had trauma call o/n.

Is this just a chump rotation I’m on? This week I didn’t stay past 7pm when I wasn’t on call, I had that ‘free’ time in the afternoon on Wednesday and Friday, and I got out by ~10am both my post call days.

All that said, I still can’t reconcile how my friends at other schools, and my own school, are putting in so many more hours consistently. Is that legitimate?