my cousin Beija in Munich last summer, her boyfriend, Julius, told me he was in his second year of surgery residency, and I was surprised by how well rested he looked. He and Beija had just returned from a boozy wedding over a long weekend, and as we watched soccer, ate schnitzel at a biergarten, and met family for lunch downtown, I kept expecting him to get a text and have to leave. But the weekend kept on rolling. It was a stark contrast to medical training in America, where residents refer to two days off in a row as a “golden weekend,” and spend three to seven years working 80 hours a week. As
