When you take a leave of absence (LOA) your training may be extended. This may be undesirable for many reasons including complicating your transition straight into a fellowship or attending position here or at another institution.

Your first step is to familiarize yourself with the requirements of your program's certifying board. Each training program has different rules about the number of days that must be worked in order to become board eligible.

You might not need to use vacation to avoid a training extension. Many certifying boards, including ABOG, ABA, and those in the ABMS, provide for time away from training for the purposes of parental, caregiver, and medical leave, without exhausting vacation time.

Be sure to talk to your program director about the implications of your leave as soon as you feel comfortable disclosing the need.

Use Vacation in Conjunction with a LOA to Avoid a Training Extension

There are two ways to use vacation to reduce a training extension. The first (informal) is to use vacation at the time of your leave of absence to avoid a training extension in the first place. If a leave of absence will extend your training program you have the option of using available vacation days, instead of leave of absence time, in order to reduce the potential number of days of a training extension.

Important notes:

• The leave and vacation time must be within the current academic year.
• Unused Vacation days cannot be applied to a leave of absence once it has been processed.
• If a leave of absence is for a serious illness, often vacation days cannot be used as part of the LOA. This is because you must be cleared to return to work by Work Connections. If your clearance is received before the leave of absence has been processed, there may be an opportunity to use vacation days. Your Program Administrator can assist in determining what is possible.

Reducing an Existing Training Extension with Vacation

The second way (formal process) to reduce a training extension with vacation is after the extension is already in place. This applies to extensions you already have due to LOAs in previous years, or the early part of the current year.

In order to forgo vacation days to reduce a training extension, you must submit a form on MedHub. That form has a deadline of September 1st of the academic year you wish to use the vacation time. The form is called Request to Voluntarily Forgo Vacation Days to Reduce an Extension of Training Due to a LOA Form, and can be found in MedHub under "Resident-Initiated Self Evaluation(s)."

Important: The deadline is early. You must submit the form by September 1st.

Leaves, Training Extensions, and House Officer Promotion
(What about your Money?)

A LOA used to push back your promotion date by the same amount of time that you took off from work. However, as of July 1, 2023, the ACGME implemented requirements that sponsoring institutions allow an automatic one-time waiver for time off of up to 6-weeks for most residents and fellows. This means no extension of training and a timely promotion. Immediately consult with your program administration regarding the impact of any LOA.

In some situations, a promotional increase might be delayed while you complete your annual curriculum. You may be familiar with the salary schedule published in the Collective Bargain Agreement listing the pay raises associated with each promotion in House Officer Level, as well as each fiscal year.

With no training extension, assuming your start-date was the usual July 1, you could expect to move diagonally through the scale from box "A" to "C". In the above example with a training extension of 28 days, you would move from box "A" to "B" on July 1, and then from "B" to "C" on July 29.

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In addition to ARTICLE XIII. PAID TIME AWAY and ARTICLE XIV. UNPAID LEAVE please read the following contract language that applies to using vacation time to offset training extensions:

ARTICLE XII. LEAVES AND IMPACT ON TRAINING

¶81 - The HOA and the Employer recognize that due to leaves, as addressed in Articles XIII and XIV, delays or interruptions may arise during training such that the required training cannot be completed within the required total training time established for each training program and that the requirements vary between training programs. In such circumstances, if the trainee's Program Director and Clinical Competency Committee attest that the trainee has achieved required competence, the Program Director may seek on the resident's behalf, a reduction-in-training, to the extent allowed by the individual's national certifying Board.

¶82 - Separately negotiated benefits contained within the collective bargaining agreement such as paid vacation during an appointment year may be used to off-set deficits in training due to leave time as defined in Article XIII and Article XIV, to the extent allowed by the individual's national certifying Board and following the processes and procedures identified by the Employer. Reductions in training are not assured or guaranteed and are always subject to the applicable national certifying Board's approval, upon request of the Program Director in his or her sole discretion. In no case may the Program Director be compelled to make the request of the national certifying Board. The request is made solely on the assessment of readiness for independent practice. The Program Director's determination regarding reductions-in-training are not subject to the grievance and arbitration proceedings of the Parties' Collective Bargaining Agreement.

¶83 - This language is applicable only to deficits in training time that result from leaves. It does not apply to deficits that may result from other actions, such as extensions due to remediation or probation.