23-24 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; single vacation days should not be used on two or more consecutive WES days.
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. The winter break week does not count as a clinic-heavy block.
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 count toward your vacation days (one of your vacation weeks is reserved for this purpose). As mentioned above, you should schedule all 4 of your weeks prior to the start of the academic year, however if you hope or plan to attend a conference, please place your 4th week toward the end of the academic year so that you can pull days from it to cover conference attendance.
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.
Vacation during Research:
If you wish to ensure that a week is completely protected from these requirements, you will need to use vacation time which is expected to be taken in seven concurrent days. You are permitted to split up one of your four weeks of vacation for the year for the purpose of a major life event or a conference. If there is a reason to not take your vacation days during Research concurrently (and you have not already split one of your weeks), please discuss this with Nicole.CanterburyPassoth@CUAnschutz.edu.
Please be aware that you are eligible for jeopardy while on Research block. If you add vacation time after the jeopardy schedule has been finalized, it is your responsibility to find someone to cover any scheduled shifts. When you have identified coverage, please email the jeopardy Chief Resident for approval.
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.
New Vacation Requests & Vacation Change Requests:
All schedule and vacation changes must be confirmed through the Housestaff Office and published on AMION.
- Vacations occurring July through December will be considered final upon publication on AMION at the start of the academic year.
Outside of the initial vacation solicitations, new requests or change requests throughout the year will follow this process:
- Requests affecting a date falling within the next 60 days or less will be denied. If you have a previously unforeseen and urgent need please email your clinic director (re: add back) and Nicole.CanterburyPassoth@CUAnschutz.edu directly.
- Requests affecting a date falling within the next 61-120 days during elective will only be approved if the elective can accommodate the absence and your clinic is amenable to adjusting your add-back. Requests affecting a clinic block will be subject to clinic director approval. These requests should be submitted via the Formstack https://ucdenverdata.formstack.com/workflows/vacation_request
- Requests affecting a date falling within the next 121+ days should be submitted via the Formstack https://ucdenverdata.formstack.com/workflows/vacation_request
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).
Half Day Absences
If you are going to be missing part of any rotation or educational activity in order attend something related to your health (doctor’s appointment, therapy session, etc) that lasts less than 4 hours, you will not be charged vacation or sick time and will not be expected to make that time up. We do encourage you to try to schedule any appointments related to your health during non-clinic half days whenever possible although we recognize that is not always possible. For last minute appointments related to your health that impact time in clinic seeing patients, we will ask you to work with your clinic director to ensure that the impact on patient care is minimized.
If you are going to miss part of an educational activity (due to illness in you or a family member or due to a personal emergency) but are still able to complete an educational virtual activity, you will be excused from a ½ day of work and will be expected to do 80 NEJM+ questions during this time or attend the session virtually if that is an option. This only applies to WES, QI ambulatory time, and skills development time. This does not apply to time seeing patients or task coverage time. If you are using this option, you need to inform your clinic director (if applicable for QI ambulatory time), the chief on call and Nicole Canterbury-Passoth.
Because each resident’s schedule is different, a half day absence (not related to sick time or a personal emergency) during a clinic week or elective will require the use of a full vacation day, even if you are working the other half day. Make-up arrangements are not an option for absences in 2023-2024.
To miss any half day of a clinic week or elective for any reason other than appointments related to your health, illness related to yourself or a family member, a personal emergency, and fellowship/job interview you must provide at least 61 days’ notice and submit via the Formstack for a full vacation day https://ucdenverdata.formstack.com/workflows/vacation_request
The one exception to this is Friday afternoon – Personal Growth and Development half day during the clinic week. To miss this half day only you do not need to utilize a vacation day, however if you will miss Fri morning, you must use a whole vacation day to cover the absence. We are not able to track vacation half days.
For absences related to sick time, if you are able to work at least half a day you will not be required to use a sick day.
For absences related to fellowship or job interviews (see more information below), if you are able to work at least half a day you will not be required to use one of your 10 fellowship/job interview days.
Requesting Jeopardy Protection:
A survey will be sent out in September whereupon you can request to be protected from being placed on the jeopardy schedule during your elective(s) falling January - June.
Requesting Day off of Ward/Required Rotation:
A survey will be sent out in September whereupon you can request that one of your 4 days off during an inpatient/required block occurring January - June 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.CanterburyPassoth@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.
- The coverage swaps system can be used by residents for shorter absences related to personal or professional reasons.
- As the resident on inpatient (the one needing coverage) you can arrange for no more than one coverage swap per rotation.
- You can participate in a maximum of three reciprocal coverage swaps per year.
- 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 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-Passoth
- (Nicole.CanterburyPassoth@CUAnschutz.edu) of any swaps as soon as approved by Chief Residents.
- Must be arranged at least 3 months in advance.