Baseline duty hours recorded with time-cards: a pre-regulation study of internal medicine residents.
OBJECTIVE
The acquisition of data on resident duty hours has been largely dependent on self-report surveys collected in the surgical literature. We sought to implement and describe a simple method for monitoring internal medicine resident duty hours by using time-cards.


METHODS
In 2002, internal medicine residents on a 3-site academic programme were asked to track their duty hours using time-cards prior to the implementation of system changes according to duty hours reform.


METHODS
An academic internal medicine residency programme in the USA.


RESULTS
Of participating residents (n = 41), 93% worked at least 1 shift longer than 30 hours, 29% worked an average of more than 80 hours per week, and 56% had less than 1 day off per week. No residents were on call more than once every third day.


CONCLUSIONS
This study describes the findings and challenges of using time-cards to track duty hours, and shows that many internal medicine residents on this programme were, before implementation of duty hours reforms, in violation of duty hours regulations.
Chang
Larry W
LW
PRIME Program, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-111, USA.
Vidyarthi
Arpana R
AR
Kohlwes
R Jeffrey
RJ
D006753:Hospital Records / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States