How the heck do I get down to 80 hrs?

[Sabreman]

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I just took my first call and was up working for 37 hours straight. There wasn't really any other way to do this if I wanted to make sure MY patients were actually all tucked in/followed up on/dispo'd by the guy who knows them (me). So now I have 4 days left (one day will be off) and 43 hours of my 80 hrs left, with one more call coming. I understand that I will get more efficient and get out earlier, and generally get a few hours of sleep (although I think in house sleep still counts towards this 80 hours). I was not scutted at all, there was just that much to do. How the heck will this work?

 

[Olanzapine]

If you are referring to the GME guidelines, I don't believe that they go into effect until 2003. And even after they go into effect, I heard that they have all of these loopholes (educational hours, lecture hours don't count in the 80 hr limit or the 24 hr limit, you can add 6 hrs of educational hours to the 24 hr "limit", it's an 80 hr avg over 2 weeks, etc) that the guidelines will be essentially useless, particularly if they are as unenforced as they are in NY.

 

[MacGyver]

For that matter, are you absolutely sure that all of your patients were completely done with the process after 37 hours? So you are saying that they ALL left the hospital and were discharged at that time? I didnt think so.

So in actuality if you want to get REAL patient continuity and see them all the way thru, my guess is you need to stay up an additional 12 or so hours.

Come on it cant be that bad. If you can do 37 hours, certainly 49 hours straight can be done too.

 

[Sabreman]

My God, you're right! What a slacker I am to have left so early. From now on I will stay awake and on the medicine floor from admission to discharge of every single pt, including the obese, demented pt who has been waiting for a nursing home bed for three weeks!

Oh, and FYI, internal medicine programs have been limited to 80 hours for years by the RRC/ACGME so this new legislation really doesn't make any difference to us.