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House Keeping Items ​

Kelsey Repine MD, Brian Tashjian MD, Adapted from Prior Chief Emails

Welcome to the new year! As we head into this new year, we'd like to cover some items as a refresher for the current residents and a primer for the new residents. These questions and concerns will come up throughout the year and we want a centralized place to find this information.

ORIENT EARLY AND ORIENT OFTEN ​

It is expected of you as a professional to look ahead to your next rotation and orient to it. Often this means actually physically going to the location and asking someone who's currently on it to show you around, show you places and things you need to know, make sure your access is set up, etc. Sometimes it may just mean that all you need is a detailed walk through with a resident currently on. Sometimes it may mean giving up part of a post call day or evening, unfortunately. Despite our best efforts to provide more orientation time, we do not currently have it. So, you must do this on your own time and prior to the first day of the rotations. The only exception is Children's, which provides the first day as a strictly orientation day. Otherwise, this is a professional violation to not be prepared.

CONTACT YOUR ATTENDING THE NIGHT BEFORE YOUR CASE ​

It is expected for you to prep your patients the day before. At our program, the expectation is for you to call your attending to discuss plans. PLEASE do not just send a text plan! It is totally acceptable to text the attending to find a time to talk, or if the attending asks you to send a text plan, then that is permissible (please be mindful of HIPAA when sending these texts).

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR OWN GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS ​

Dr. Kacmar and the rotation directors do their best to ensure you each meet these, but ultimately you need to be tracking as well and speaking up if something is amiss. In short, to graduate, you must have completed all of the following:

  • 2 weeks pre-op clinic
  • 2 weeks PACU
  • 3 months ICU (not including one month in PGY-1 year)
  • 2 months OB
  • 2 months peds
  • 2 months Neuro
  • 2 months CT
  • 3 months pain (including at least 1 month each of acute and chronic pain)
  • 2 weeks NORA

SICK DAY PROCESS ​

15 days divided over the 3 years of residency (CA1-CA3). To be used for illnesses and other emergencies. Many residents save sick days for maternity/paternity leave, although most graduate without using all of them. The process for how to use it is outlined here:

  1. Text or call the chiefs to let us know you need a sick day. This is often urgent, so please escalate if you don't hear from us (i.e., text first then try to call). Typically, a group text is ideal so we are all on the same page, and then the relevant site chief can work on getting your shift covered and notifying the jeopardy resident of their new assignment ASAP.

  2. Text or call your attending for the day you will be sick (if you've already been assigned). This is also often urgent, so please escalate as above if you don't receive confirmation that they got your text.

  3. Send an email to the following emails so we and the admin team can keep track:

Of special note: if you are sick or in an emergency, please don't hesitate to use these days - that's what they're for! We want residents to feel comfortable using a sick day when they are sick and you should feel confident you will not be interrogated as to why you need a sick day. However, this doesn't happen in a vacuum, often you will have to be covered by the resident on jeopardy or R2 especially if you're calling in for an evening or call shift. We all take turns as jeopardy so it is likely you will be called at some point to cover someone else's emergency, and there is no need to feel guilty about calling out. We just ask that you are cognizant of these factors. Therefore our recommendation is if you please take it. However, if you need a sick day to make it to an appointment we do ask you to plan ahead and schedule it on a day that scheduling wellness days above).

If you are considering calling out sick, go ahead and send us a text so that we can be thinking about how to shuffle the assignments to optimize coverage.

If you take a sick day on an overnight shift: If you have a post-call day, you will need to either 1) Work your originally scheduled post-call day or 2) take TWO sick days as you were not truly "post call." If you have another night shift to follow and you feel well enough to return to work, you only need to take one sick day.

POST CALL PROCESS ​

At UCH, Post-call starts after 10pm. If you are going to be postcall because you are at the hospital after these cut offs, please do the following to help the next day team shuffle the schedule for coverage in the morning:

CONFERENCE DAYS, EDUCATION DAYS, EDUCATIONAL MONEY ​

You get $1000 per year in educational funds that can be spent on books, exams, study aid apps. You get an additional $1500 per year that can only be used if you present at a conference, in which case it can be used for flight costs and hotel costs, food costs, etc. Whether or not you plan to present, if you plan to attend the conference, make sure you look at registration fees as you have to register yourself and they often get more expensive the longer you wait. You get 5 educational days (workday days) per year. If your conference is 5 days long and you want to go to all of it, you can. If you only use some and find a conference later that you want to go to as well, let us know and depending on coverage we will try to make it happen.

After you get back from a conference, please email the education team your conference receipts and they will get you reimbursed. You can also get reimbursed for text books, question banks, etc. Reach out to the coordinators for more details on what can and cannot be purchased with education funds.

The conference we host in Vail, Colorado, CRASH, is sponsored by the program for the CA3s - half the CA3s will go to the first half of it and the other half will go to the second half. This does not require educational days to be used.

SOME PHONE CALLS WILL NEED TO BE ANSWERED, NO MATTER TIME OF THE DAY ​

Please put the numbers listed below in your do not disturb list (or whatever the android version of it is). If either of us call you or the university calls you, then something is happening that needs your immediate attention - maybe you're not post call like you thought, maybe you accidentally skipped a shift, maybe your alarm didn't go off. Whatever happened, we're all human and understand. But if we cannot get a hold of you to check on you, we will reach out to your second contact that you provide. If we are unable to get ahold of you through them, then we will call the police and ask them to do a home visit. Please pick up when we call.

TRADING IS FINE, WITH APPROVAL ​

If you have something going on and want to trade shifts with someone, plan ahead. Truthfully, if you have something planned, you need to put a request in qgenda before the request deadline. We work hard to get the schedule out far in advance, so please let us know about weddings, engagements, etc, during the five-day request period for each block. If something comes up after that request period and after the schedule is published, then it is your responsibility to come up with a trade. Ask around, look at Qgenda, and see if someone is willing to trade with you, and if so, then write an email to the chief account, cc the person who agreed to trade with you, and pitch it to us and we'll see if it meets all rotation and duty hour requirements to allow the trade.

Jeopardy is to be used for emergencies - you just woke up with a fever of 103F, a family member just died, someone just stole your car, there was an accident and you're on your way to the ED to be checked out. It's not to be used for things that could have been planned for in advance. Your fellow residents are often very understanding and willing to work with you, so please put in the work to make it happen.

INCENTIVE SHIFTS ARE REWARDS, NOT EXPECTATIONS ​

Logistics: CA1s can start taking incentive shifts in January. There are currently 2 types of incentive shifts - OR incentive shifts and ICU (CTICU/STICU) shifts. The Chiefs handle assignments and troubleshooting with the OR incentive shifts, and the surgery chiefs handle ICU assignments and troubleshooting. You can only take ICU shifts if you have already rotated in those specific ICUs.

Please see the incentive shift section for more details

Reminders: #1 rule is that your resident responsibilities always come first. That means education days, conferences, lectures, and regularly scheduled resident shifts are top priority over incentive shifts. This also means absolutely no double dipping. If you are scheduled to be home call or R2 you are not free to take incentive shifts of any kind. If you have extra time off, you can sign up. Ultimately, you are responsible for you to be post call for your normal resident duties. If you use your days off for incentive shifts, that is your prerogative. Just remember that residency is a marathon and if you take a lot of incentive shifts and feel burned out on your normal resident duties, this is a professional violation.