residency work hours

[Jennifer Zeigler]

Hi everyone:

I'm a writer with The New Physician magazine, and I'm interested in hearing about how your residency programs are coping with the new ACGME work hours regulations.

Are things going smoothly, or are there glitches that still need to be worked out? Are residents in your programs now working
80-hours a week? What strategies have the hospitals employed to accomplish the new work hours goals? Have the they hired more staff to help reduce your hours? Have any of you been encouraged to lie or falsify your time sheets in order for the program to remain in compliance? Have you witnessed other
violations?

If you have a story to tell, please let me know, or pass this e-mail along if you know someone else who might have something to say. We're gathering information for possible inclusion in an article about the new work hours regulations, however, we will provide confidentiality at the request of any of our sources, so don't be afraid to tell us what's really going on. I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennifer
_____________________________________________
Jennifer Zeigler
senior writer, The New Physician magazine
(703) 620-6600, ext. 230
jzeigler@www.amsa.org
www.amsa.org/tnp/tnp.cfm

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[fourthyear]

There have been lots of posts on this lately. Try the search feature and you will have a good start on this topic from people on this forum.

For me, no, I have not at all been encouraged to lie. Most of the reduction in hours has come from having the days off (not having everyone come in on the weekends, but just covering patients for other residents on their weekend days off), going home early post-call, and having more cross-coverage on call (covering several services of patients while on call, but being on call less-often). Overall, you work even harder when you are at the hospital, but you are not at the hospital as much overall. So far it's working well enough to get us under the hours for the most part.

I'm doing surgery. The only worry is if we are going to get as many surgical cases in as we have in the past? Most of us dont' mind working harder to get to do more cases, but the law is the law now, so we'll see how it goes...