Internal Medicine and General Surgery Residents??? Attitudes about the ACGME Duty Hours Regulations: A Multicenter Study

Abstract

Residents in medicine and surgery had similar opinions about the effects of duty hours reform, including improved quality of life. However, resident opinions suggest that reduced fatigue-related errors have been offset by errors related to decreased continuity of care and that the quality of the educational experience may have declined. Quantifying the degree to which regulating duty hours affected errors related to discontinuity of care should be a focus of future research.

Understanding Resident Learning Preferences Within an Internal Medicine Noon Conference Lecture Series: A Qualitative Study

“…21 Internal medicine residents reported less exposure to formal conferences after the 2003 restrictions on duty hours. 22 Because of its efficiency at delivering content in the …”

Did Duty Hour Reform Lead to Better Outcomes Among the Highest Risk Patients?

“…Current deliberations about further modifications to the duty hour regulations to improve patient safety 34 must weigh the evidence on the lack of beneficial or harmful effects on mortality of the current ACGME duty hour standards against evidence that residents have a higher quality of life under the new system. 35,36 There is still little evidence about how the duty hour reform affected outcomes other than mortality. In related work, 37,38 we have found no consistent changes in the probability of patients experiencing prolonged length of stay (other than possibly in vascular surgery) or in the rates at which a wide range of patients experienced complications (Patient Safety Indicators or PSIs) before versus after the duty hour changes in more and less teaching-intensive hospitals.…”

Impact of Protected Sleep Period for Internal Medicine Interns on Overnight Call on Depression, Burnout, and Empathy

“…Studies reported reduced burnout in internal medicine residents 6,7 and decreased burnout 5 and improved quality of life among surgical trainees after the 2003 duty hour reform. 3,8 Overall, an early review concluded that quality of life probably improved.…”