Resident duty-hour limits linked to safety, education concerns

By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Restrictions on work hours for surgeons-in-training may have backfired, according to a new review that found doctors performed worse on certification tests and believed patient safety declined after the rule change. Long shifts and lack of sleep among medical residents led the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to restrict work hours in 2003 and again in 2011. For the new review, researchers examined 135 prior studies and found that while limiting surgery trainees to 80-hour workweeks may improve their well-being, capping their work shifts at 16 hours might degrade patient care and resident education. "The study reinforces something that most surgeons already know or at least feel - strict duty-hours regulations don't have the beneficial effects that many people hoped they'd have, and they may have a detrimental effect," Dr. Brian Drolet told Reuters Health.



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