22-23 Leave Policies
Vacation Policy:
General:
All interns and residents are required to have any outstanding medical records and dictations completed prior to going on vacation.
Interns and residents receive 28 calendar days of paid vacation.
Each of these weeks must consist of 2 weekend days and 5 week days.
Three of these weeks must be scheduled from Monday through Sunday unless special permission has been given from the Housestaff Office. One of these weeks may be split up in order to accommodate conference attendance and major life events with the permission from the Housestaff Office.
You must take at least 1 but no more than 2 of these vacation weeks during your clinic-heavy blocks. You must take at least 2 but up to 4 vacation weeks during elective-heavy blocks unless permission has been given from the Housestaff Office for another arrangement.
Vacations may not be taken from ward/required rotations.
You should schedule all of these weeks at the beginning of the year unless you have a special circumstance that you have discussed with the Housestaff Office. You may make changes to these originally scheduled vacation weeks throughout the year with sufficient notice (as outlined below).
Academic presentations and conference attendance during all electives, including research, count toward your vacation days (one of your vacation weeks is reserved for this purpose).
You cannot take 2 weeks off within a single block without special approval from the Housestaff Office.
Fellows and attendings cannot give permission for additional vacation without approval from the Housestaff Office. If you are absent without providing notification and receiving approval by the Housestaff Office, you may be placed on probation.
If you have an acute need for absence (absence without prior approval) for any reason (including illness) please inform both the Chief Resident and Housestaff Office as far in advance as possible.
The mandatory In-Training Exam is given in late August and early September. Please be aware that vacation may be minimized at this time.
Vacation cannot be carried over to the next academic year.
Intern Bootcamp:
Intern Bootcamp runs from the last week of June through the first week of July.
Winter Break:
Winter Break encompasses the 2 consecutive weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Day. You may elect to take one of these two weeks as a vacation week. We will attempt to honor which specific week is requested however this is not a guarantee. You will be on wards/inpatient the opposite week.
If you do not elect to take vacation one of these 2 weeks, you will be on your continuity clinic or RAC for one week and on wards/inpatient the opposite week.
Change Requests:
All schedule and vacation changes must be confirmed through the Housestaff Office and published on AMION.
Vacation during Elective:
A survey will be sent out in September to collect vacation change requests affecting electives occurring January - June. This survey does not collect requests to change vacation occurring during clinic.
- Vacations in July through December will be considered final upon publication on AMION.
- Changes requested outside of the survey with between 45 and 90 days’ notice will only be approved if the elective can accommodate. These requests should be directed to Nicole.Canterbury@CUAnschutz.edu in the Housestaff Office.
- Changes requested with less than 45 days’ notice cannot be accommodated, as clinic will have already scheduled patients during the add-back half day.
For changes to vacation affecting clinic:
- Changes requested more than 45 days in advance should be submitted to your clinic director first. If the request is approved, email Nicole.Canterbury@CUAnschutz.edu in the Housestaff Office with your clinic director cc’ed so it can be updated on AMION.
- Any requests made less than 45 days in advance will be automatically denied due to patients already being scheduled.
If your change affects the jeopardy call system, it is your responsibility to arrange for alternate coverage (not the responsibility of the Program or Chief Residents).
Requests for changes to continuity clinic week half days:
- Changes to continuity clinic week half days should be submitted to your clinic director at least 90 days in advance and may require you to use vacation time.
- Once approved by your clinic director, you should notify the Housestaff office at Nicole.Canterbury@CUAnschutz.edu as this change needs to be recorded.
Requesting Jeopardy Protection:
On the vacation change survey you can also request to be protected from being placed on the jeopardy schedule during your elective(s).
Requesting Day off of Ward/Required Rotation:
On the vacation change survey you can also request that one of your 4 days off during an inpatient/required block falls on a certain date:
Leave for Fellowship and Job Interviews:
Half days count as full days. For example, if you attend an AM clinic and are absent for the afternoon session in order to travel to an in-person interview or attend a virtual interview, that will count as a full day worked.
You may miss up to 10 days total during elective time for fellowship and job-related travel/interviewing without any penalty. This is in addition to your annual vacation days.
These 10 days may also be used during clinic and RAC if these rotations can accommodate your absence(s), but please attempt to schedule your interviews during electives as much as possible.
The special rules for other rotations are as follows:
Clinic – as patients are scheduled 45 days in advance, your clinic will likely need to cancel them during your absence. In light of that, please provide your clinic with as much advance notice as possible. Requests will be approved if your clinic can accommodate your absence.
RAC – a minimum of 2 weeks’ notice to the chief is required due to patient scheduling needs. Consideration will be given to residents who have a last minute interview come up but it cannot be guaranteed.
ER – this is a graduation requirement, so you need to complete a full complement of ER shifts over the month to get credit for the rotation. However, you will have the ability to arrange your shifts as permitted with the ER schedule, their leadership, and your co-residents in order to accommodate your absences. You cannot “make up” missed ER shifts in any other capacity.
Inpatient - we understand due to the 4+4 schedule structure that you may be on an inpatient rotation when you are invited to interview. If this is the case for you, please contact the CMR at the affected hospital site as soon as you schedule an interview, so that they can plan and arrange for coverage if necessary.
If you are going to miss more than these 10 days during interview season, contact the program director to discuss the potential approval of additional days.
To get credit for any rotation, you have to attend a minimum of 50% of the scheduled days – for example, if you have a week of vacation on an elective, you will only have 5 remaining work days that you can miss.
While you do not need to contact the residency program prior to accepting and scheduling an interview on elective for fellowship or a job, you should let us know (Nicole.Canterbury@CUAnschutz.edu) within 24 hours of accepting so that we can account for your absence. The same applies if you are changing an interview date.
Rules for Coverage Swaps:
- The coverage swaps system can be used by residents for shorter absences related to personal or professional reasons.
- The coverage can be for 1, 2, or 3 days.
- Rules for covering someone else:
- You are not allowed to miss more than 1 day of clinic or more than 3 days of an elective to cover someone else.
- You are not allowed to miss RAC in order to cover for someone else.
- Those on ED cannot miss an ED shift to cover for someone on wards. You should only cover when you are not scheduled for an ED shift.
- You cannot violate duty hours to cover a shift for someone else.
- Rules for requesting coverage from a co-resident:
- We encourage you to try to swap with residents on ED or research blocks. The program will provide you with instructions on how to determine which residents are on these rotations in AMION.
- You are not allowed to request more than 2 coverage swaps during the academic year.
- You will not be “charged” vacation days for a coverage swap.
- Approval Rules:
- Must be approved by the Chief Residents at impacted sites.
- Must notify Nicole Canterbury
- (Nicole.Canterbury@CUAnschutz.edu) of any swaps as soon as approved by Chief Residents.
- Must be arranged at least 3 months in advance.