> My sister is currently a second-year medical resident, and "incredibly brutal compared..." feels like a understatement to me. She works 80hr weeks, often nigh

> My sister is currently a second-year medical resident, and "incredibly brutal compared..." feels like a understatement to me. She works 80hr weeks, often nights, helping people with deeply personal and painful issues that are hard to leave behind when you go home. This is after four years in medical school, with still at least a year to go before starting to earn doctor-level money. I wonder which medical residency is she at? My wife is a resident at a pretty busy hospital in NY metro area. She is in her first year as well and doesn't do more than two night floats a week and no more than 60-65 hours a week. I also know so many other doctors (friends/acquaintances of my wife and via my ex-landlord who owns multiple family houses which he rents out these up-and-coming/current medical residents in NY metro area) and NO ONE works even close to 80 hours a week. This is not to mention that it gets much better after the first year, and by the third year, you're only supervising most of the first years and simply studying for Step 3 (board) exam (if you haven't taken it by then). I wonder if people tend to exaggerate when it comes tho how much time they spend for work because it makes them feel good/justifiable to the amount of income that they (eventually) receive. Having quit medical school after second year in my home country (SE Asia) and having seen my wife (then fiance) studying for Step 2 and 3 exams, I personally believe that medical studies mostly requires memorization (a LOT of it) and we would be surprised how little critical thinking skills and scientific knowledge (not recent ones they've memorized off the books, but I'm talking about things like physics, math and even chemistry) your average doctor has. They forget it all in a year or two after med school for sure (I can't possibly recall more than 206 bones that I learned in Anatomy in 2nd year!)