Does it matter how much physician trainees work anymore?

The restriction of working hours for physicians in training was one of the earliest and most far-reaching interventions of the patient safety movement. The US Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented rules in 2003 restricting residents to 80 h of work per week and no more than 30 h of continuous duty. Subsequent regulations implemented in 20111 limited the maximum shift length for first-year trainees to 16 h and reduced continuous duty for all residents to 28 h. Other countries have implemented significantly stricter rules—the European Working Time Directive2 has limited European trainees to 48 working hours per week since 2009. These regulations directly affect >118 000 residents in the USA3 and about 40 000 junior doctors in the UK yearly, with major consequent effects on the workforce and finances of teaching hospitals and clinics. Yet a decade of rigorous evaluation has failed to demonstrate any improvement...
Source: BMJ Quality and Safety - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Editorials Source Type: research