How less hours and more shifts is worse than less shifts and more hours

A.K.A. "A treatise on why I'm so damn tired all the time and never get to see my wife."

In a previous post, I posted our new "progressive" schedule that was touted as so great and we wouldn't be working as hard and we would have more time with our families.

I'm calling bullshit on that right now.

While we may not be working as many hours directly, the hours are still taking just as much of a toll as they did before. Now, instead of working 16 or 17 shifts a month (granted they were longer hour shifts), we are working 21-22 8 hour shifts a month, plus all our other mandatory stuff we have to attend.

So, now we are looking at about 24 days out of the month we are working. This is still good compared to some specialties, but the problem is here: My wife and I seem to be on opposite schedules and never have more than one day off at a time together, and it is always when one of us is post-call or off a night shift. This makes any time together rather hard to get.

As a result, I write a pissy blog post, and she is upset...

I guess I should look at the bright side, right? Only 2 more years of this, and hopefully her schedule will be a little more flexible next year, as she will be done with residency and in her "interim year" waiting for me to be done with residency so she can start fellowship... She says she is going to work part time, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Anyway, I'm tired, because I work too much, and I'm grumpy because I never get to see my wife.

I end the post with the same sentence, rephrased. Wow, I'm such an awesome writer. I make myself want to puke.