Welcome to your go-to Dictionary for WOAS!

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Call or On-Call: a 30+ hour workday. One leaves their home at 5 AM on Day 1 and returns around 1 PM on Day 2. Workday includes having cases all day until 5 PM and then being up all night and seeing endless consults OR being lucky and sleeping at least 4 hours on an uncomfortable twin bed completely undisturbed.

Fellowship: According to the American College of Surgeons, a fellowship is specialized training after having met the requirements for board certification. In other words, if you wanna specialize in surgery, you’re gonna be in-training for a couple more years!

PGY5: Acronym for Post Graduate Year 5. It signifies the year of residency after graduating from medical school. Medicine residents usually have 3 post graduate years. Surgical residents  usually have 5.

Scrub-In: The crucial step before entering an OR – washing and disinfecting your hands, wearing clean operating gowns and slipping on at least two layers of gloves.

That Place: The hospital.

Vacation: a respite from that place, be it a day, four days, two weeks, or a month. Residents are usually allocated to 4 days off a month, and 4 weeks off a year. Many of these days get swallowed up regardless in logging cases, studying for boards and certifications, and backlog dictations.

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DISCLAIMER: I am using and defining these terms to the best of my knowledge. If you have any inputs, by all means, leave a comment and I’d be happy to adjust accordingly.