I keep seeing vacation time listed as a benefit at the different residency programs my husband has applied to, but can you actually take that time? It seems like your schedule is so regimented that it would be impossible. I am trying to figure out if my husband could use vacation days when our future baby is born.

Every program is different, but it's usually a week in certain rotation months. For example, when I was a resident, we had 4 weeks per year. Intern year, you had 2 weeks during 2 different EM months, 1 on your anesthesia month and 1 during the holidays (Half the residents got Christmas, half New Years. Someone has to work...)

Taking several vacation weeks together was not an option (although one could set up Dec to get two in a row if they really wanted to.) Now, programs will work with residents (if he were an upper level, "elective" or "research" months often turn into a long vacation and would be workable into a pseudo paternity leave)

Does that make sense? It's not like a regular job where you just ask for whatever you want. You take what they give you.

Mine was like Popcorn's- you could take a week at a time in certain rotations. For my OBGYN program this was in the "moderate" to "less intense" rotations, such as OB rotation, or GYN surgery at the community hospitals (never on oncology). We had three weeks per year. Of course, the missed calls were made up with "fill-ins" when you did call for other residents when they went on vacation. It all evens out in the end.

We had to put in our request a few weeks after the year's rotation schedule was set, when we knew what we would be doing each month. Like Popcorn said, there was no guarantee, but the chiefs tried to be as fair as possible.

4 weeks? Nice!

I'm an R2 in internal medicine. I definitely can't wake up in the morning and think, "What a gorgeous day. I think I'll take a vacation day today." I do get vacation, but it's scheduled a year in advance, part of the rotation schedule for the year. Last year I got a week in July (useless, since I'd just started), two weeks in April, one week (unpaid!) at the end of June. This year I get a two week vacation in December. We also get either Christmas week or New Year's week off, so I actually have three weeks off all in a row in December. I'm taking an unpaid leave later this year, but otherwise, I'd have another two week block of vacation later in the year as well.

It's tough. Women can use their vacation time when the baby is born (of course), but men usually cannot. Like Popcorn and Emily said, the best that he can do is get a couple of sick days when the baby is actually born, and try to schedule a vacation week (or two if possible) around your due date.
You do get those four weeks though, and they are real vacation. They are just completely inflexible.

My husband would have been allowed to use FMLA time per his residency director, but he would have had to make it up. (Just as I did when I used my residency-agreed FMLA time). The upside is, they would have just accepted it at last minute, rather than vacation which does have to be scheduled in advance.

I have been laughing for a good minute, in a way only an overworked intern can laugh! Although if this were possible, it would actually be more like "It's 4:30 and I'm tired and I hate my life and I'm not going to work today!"

Guess who's looking forward to her (rigidly-scheduled) vacation in a few weeks?

I can't do that now, even as an attending....it would screw people in the office and my partners...that part doesn't change!

My resident vacation was pretty much the same as described above...4 weeks, but we were told when to take them, with the chiefs doing their best to get everyone to be happy,..

I know, I know. Hilarious. Except, of course, there are careers where this is possible. My husband is a physicist working in industry, but doing basic science for the most part. He get six weeks paid vacation per year, and no one much cares when he takes it. Two days here, a long weekend there, a half day here. Dreamy. We should have been physicists, girls. I'm serious.

Ick - physics was the bane of my existence in pre-med! I was not a fan...too bad my brother is a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, my sister a Calculus teacher, and my husband - also a mechanical engineer. When I told my physics professor I just "didn't get" physics, but then explained I am trying to get tutored by the above-mentioned various people - my prof at the time looked at me as if to say "What happened with you?" LOL

But I am jealous of the paid time off! Now my bro is a professor at a major university on tenure track, and his schedule has flexibility etc. It's pretty cool. Jealous, yes.