Resident work hour restrictions: Good for nothing?

September 5, 2007

Studies in JAMA suggest no improvement in mortality:

Cutting the grueling work hours of doctors-in-training had little effect on reducing patient deaths, according to two large studies . . .

. . . For the groups with no change, Volpp said one possible explanation is that more patient handoffs by residents offset the benefits of reduced fatigue.

Update:
Roy Poses with his thoughts.



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{ 3 comments }

1 Health Train Express September 5, 2007 at 9:15 am

Resident work hours and morbidity.
Another more likely explanation is that there was NO relationship between morbidity and work hours.

2 Anonymous September 5, 2007 at 9:51 am

Good. Maybe that means residents don’t have to work like slaves and morbidity won’t increase.

3 Roy M. Poses MD September 5, 2007 at 3:06 pm

The most likely explanations were that:
1. Most errors due to resident fatigue do not increase 30 day mortality, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t bad enough, and
2. Even the currently “reformed” work hours still allow a resident to work 30 hours straight, take 10 hours off, then work another 30, still leading to major sleep deprivation and fatigue.
See our posts on Health Care Renewal:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-resident-duty-hour-reform-did-not.html
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2007/09/in-on-sleep-deprivation-and-medical.html

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