Does anyone know how many hours a week you will be at the hospital during an ER residency. I was talking to a med student friend of mine this weekend and she said it would be the 80 hours/week that they are legally allowed to make you work and that you would be working this much during years 3 and 4 of med school as well. I feel a little crushed as I had read that E.R physicians work approx. 54 hours/week and had assumed residents would work similar hours.
thanks

(just for the record, it's EM and ED, not ER. Down the road there will be people that care very greatly about this. Just so you know.)

EM is generally a 3 year residency, although there are 4 year programs. Each program is a little different, but in the first year there are many off-service rotations through IM, OB, trauma, orthopedics, pediatrics, etc. Some of the time will be in the department, but the rest won't. These off-service rotations are held to the 80 hour work limit (averaged over 4 weeks), and yes, you will work close to those 80 if not over, and yes, there will be lots of overnight call. In the department, ACGME rules state no more than 12 hour shifts, and generally remember that you'll be flipping days-nights-days, so even with more actual time off that some other fields, it's still pretty brutal. There is also mandatory conference time, on top of everything else, that is 5h/week which is basically lecture.

The later years also have off-service months, often focusing on the ICUs, where you will definitely put in 80 hour weeks, plus call which is often q3 or q4. In the department, the most I think I ever did was about 72, but that was 6 12 hour shifts, which is all generally on your feet, going as fast as you can.

It's an easier residency than the surgeons do, but it's certainly not easy.

As an EM attending, I don't generally work even 54 hours a week, but the day-night-day-night business is more stressful than most non-shift workers realize. EM is generally very flexible, and there are as many different setups as there are groups. Overall, it was a very good choice for me, but it isn't exactly easy. Nothing in medicine is.

You can expect to work 80 hours/week 3rd and 4th year of medical school (some rotations are lighter). There is also the high possibility that you might not choose EM. The 80 hour work week is the norm in almost any other residency.

You can check out average residency hours for specific programs through FREIDA (however, I'm not sure that the reporting is completely accurate....)
https://freida.ama-assn.org/Freida/user/viewProgramSearch.do

Oh yeah, forgot med school... just to make a point, my 3rd year OBGYN rotation director said point-blank on our first day of the rotation that while residents are held to 80 hours per week, there is technically no such provision for medical students. I put in closer to 120h/week for that month, mostly because we had a 4pm lecture daily, and you were expected to be there even if you were postcall. (There were a lot of stolen naps, to be honest)

The hours rack up pretty quickly when you're in the hospital by 4:30 am and not home until 6-8 with call q3-4.

I cannot think of a single service at my school where med students work more than residents... if for no other reason than they have to cosign for us. That being said, surgery went over routinely until someone complained, and now we have to write down the hours we work. On OB, they tended to not care whether we were there or not, as long as postpartum notes were written, so I hovered at 75 or so. Residents (including the EM intern rotating through) tended to be there probably about 10-15 hours/week more than that.

I will note, that except for call nights and weekends, I always am done at about the same time as we pick the kiddos up from aftercare (or just after). It's just that morning time that varies. A lot.

So, yeah, it's long days. But so far, 7 months in to 3rd year, I'm still having a blast.

Didn't mean to imply that they were all like that... it was really just that rotation that was a doozy. Although now that I think about it, I did a "rural" surgery rotation 3rd year where I was on q2 all month. (Because that's how the 2 general surgeons managed their call! Talk about an insane call schedule.) Of course, I was living about 40 paces from the OR, and was in the middle of nowhere, so it really didn't matter. It was an amazing experience - I knew everything that went on in that hospital.

Fourth year is the reward for getting through third. It can be as easy or as hard as you want it to me, and most people just do enough to skate by. (Me included)

There are still programs out there (rumors of course, but source is reliable) in which you will exceed 80 hours, even averaging it per month. Other programs are strict on making sure you are not near 80 hr/wk average for the month- it all depends on the program.

I had a conversation with a surgical resident who was sent home early to avoid coming to close to 80 for that week. Maybe there is hope that surgery could become more 'family friendly' lol...

There are medical schools where the students indeed stay LONGER and hence do get more than 80 hrs/week in SOME asinine rotations. So do not assume they will hold the medical student to ACGME rules as there are NONE for medical students. Even so, there are still even residency programs (not mine) that regularly and often go over the 80 hour work week. Also, the 80 hrs/week is not PER WEEK but over a 4 week period! so maybe one week you work over 80 hrs and other week not...same with days OFF. It is NOT one day OFF per week but 3-4 days off per 4 week period! know your stuff before you go in and are like what? I did not sign up for this!