Work-hour limits may not benefit docs in training

NEW YORK, July 26 (Reuters) A survey of medical faculty members, who interact with doctors in training, or ''residents'' as their commonly known, reveals that many believe the limits placed on residency work hours have a negative impact on their education, patient care, and professionalism.

These relatively new limits have also increased their own workload and decreased their job satisfaction, the senior physicians add.

Work-hour limits, which were first implemented in 2003, were aimed at preventing the adverse effects of sleep deprivation and improving residents' well being. The goal of the present study was to assess the impact of these limits, based on the views of key faculty members.

The study, conducted by Dr. Darcy A. Reed, from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues, involved a national survey of faculty members at 39 internal medicine residency programs. Of the 154 members asked to participate, 111 (72 percent) responded.

According to the researchers' report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 87 percent of respondents believed the limits impaired residents' continuity of care and 75 per cent felt they worsened the physician-patient relationship.

Sixty-six per cent of faculty thought that duty-hour limits had a negative effect on the residents' education and professionalism, and 73 per cent felt that accountability to patients decreased.

Moreover, 57 per cent believed that the limits made residents less able to put patients' needs before their own.

At the same time, 50 percent of faculty members said that the duty-hour limits led to an improvement in residents' well-being.

Nearly half (47 per cent) of the faculty members said that their hospital workload increased after implementation of the limits. In addition, 56 per cent said that the limits were associated with reduced job satisfaction.

Faculty members with at least 5 years of teaching experience were nearly three times more likely than others to say that the duty-hour limits impaired residents' education.

''The duty-hour restrictions have improved the well-being of the residents but may be worsening the well-being of faculty members,'' Dr Barbara Schuster, from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, comments in a related editorial.

''To unravel the key determinants of physician education that lead to safe, responsible, patient-centered, quality healthcare, and considerable research will be needed.'' Reuters LPB DB1000