After limits on residency work hours, did doctors perform worse? New study says no
Physician training has long been notorious for marathon shifts, sleepless nights on call, and holidays worked. But that began to change in 2003, when the medical profession placed restrictions on work hours during residency. However, experts wondered, can we train residents in fewer hours and still make good doctors?
A new study in the BMJ says yes. The researchers, led by Dr. Anupam Jena, a professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School, looked at the performance of internal medicine doctors in their first year of unsupervised medical practice after completing their training.
