NOTE: I published this here first.
New findings, published in today's edition of the online journal BMC Medicine, indicates that Americans strongly favor tighter regulation of the number of consecutive hours that resident physicians are allowed to work, go figure. This is the first systematic study of public perceptions of resident doctors' work hours.
The authors of the groundbreaking study, which included academic experts as well as consumer and labor advocates, found that 90 percent of Americans believe that the maximum shift duration for resident physicians should be 16 hours or less, as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
The IOM concluded in 2008 that allowing resident physicians to work more than 16 consecutive hours without sleep is unsafe both for patients and resident physicians themselves. More than four of five respondents in the study believe patients should be informed if the doctor treating them has been working for 24 hours; a similar majority of respondents said that if they were told that their doctor had been awake for a day, they would request care from a different doctor.
About the Study:
The national telephone survey of a representative sample of 1,200 U.S. adults revealed:
* Only 1 percent of the general public supports shifts longer than 24 hours for medical residents. Current work hour rules permit residents to work 30-hour shifts twice weekly.
* The majority of respondents said they believe that resident physicians work shifts of less than 12 hours.
* 81 percent of the general public believes that reducing resident physician work hours would be very or somewhat effective in reducing medical errors.
* 81 percent of the public believes that patients should be informed if a treating resident physician has been working for more than 24 hours; 80 percent said they would then want a different doctor.
* When asked about specific recommendations of the IOM, four of five respondents support limiting the duration of individual work shifts to 16 hours, capping weekly work hours at a maximum of 80 hours in any single week and ensuring that medical residents have at least one day off per week.
* 68 percent favor the IOM recommendation that resident physicians not work more than 16 hours over an alternative IOM proposal that would permit resident physicians to remain in the hospital for 30 hours, as long as they were provided the opportunity to sleep for five hours without interruption after 16 hours of work.