Friday September 7, 2007
Resident hours !

This week's JAMA (click here to see the index) is dedicated to "Medical education". In this regard, there are two articles published in JAMA related to the ACGME duty hour reform, one showing significant relative improvement in mortality for patients with 4 common medical conditions but the other article showing no change in mortality. Since these changes have significant impact on the way residents work load and working hours and overall impact on the physician staffing especially in the critical care units, it is worth reviewing these publications:

1) Mortality Among Patients in VA Hospitals in the First 2 Years Following ACGME Resident Duty Hour Reform- JAMA. 2007;298:984-992

2) Mortality Among Hospitalized Medicare Beneficiaries in the First 2 Years Following ACGME Resident Duty Hour Reform - JAMA. 2007;298:975-983

3) Evaluating Resident Duty Hour Reforms: More Work to Do - JAMA 2007;298:1055-1057.

It may be of interest to know that one recent small study (by surani and co. at Texas A&M University, TX) found that 'night-float' system may be effective as residents on the night float hours were not found to be sleepier than the normal population 1. Interestingly, control group residents were sleepier as compared to normal population.


Related previous pearl:

Post fellowship shock syndrome

Why we call our housestaff 'residents' in USA ?


Reference: click to get abstract/article

1. TO ASSESS THE SLEEPINESS AMONG MEDICAL RESIDENTS USING MULTIPLE SLEEP LATENCY TEST AS OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT TOOL, presented as abstract at ACCP meeting, 2006