Limits on working time reduce interns’ surgery experience, study shows

Rules adopted by the US Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education that limit work shifts of first year surgeons in training to 16 hours significantly reduced their operative experience, a study has found.1

The restriction, adopted in 2011, came on top of 2003 rules that placed an 80 hour work week limit on all residents, because of concerns that sleep deprivation endangered patients and impeded learning.

The study’s senior author, Christian de Virgilio, of the department of surgery, Harbor-University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, and colleagues, looked at the number and type of cases that first year surgery trainees worked on …