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Baseline duty hours recorded with time‐cards: a pre‐regulation study of internal medicine residents
Author(s) -
Chang Larry W,
Vidyarthi Arpana R,
Kohlwes R Jeffrey
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
medical education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.776
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1365-2923
pISSN - 0308-0110
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2929.2006.02501.x
Subject(s) - duty , medicine , baseline (sea) , family medicine , political science , law
Objective The acquisition of data on resident duty hours has been largely dependent on self‐report surveys collected in the surgical literature. We sought to implement and describe a simple method for monitoring internal medicine resident duty hours by using time‐cards. Design In 2002, internal medicine residents on a 3‐site academic programme were asked to track their duty hours using time‐cards prior to the implementation of system changes according to duty hours reform. Setting An academic internal medicine residency programme in the USA. Results Of participating residents ( n = 41), 93% worked at least 1 shift longer than 30 hours, 29% worked an average of more than 80 hours per week, and 56% had less than 1 day off per week. No residents were on call more than once every third day. Conclusions This study describes the findings and challenges of using time‐cards to track duty hours, and shows that many internal medicine residents on this programme were, before implementation of duty hours reforms, in violation of duty hours regulations.