title: Duty Hour Reporting: Conflicting Values in Professionalism.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Duty hour limits challenge professional values, sometimes forcing residents to choose between patient care and regulatory compliance. This may affect truthfulness in duty hour reporting.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We assessed residents' reasons for falsifying duty hour reports.
  
  
  METHODS
  We surveyed residents in 1 sponsoring institution to explore the reasons for noncompliance, frequency of violations, falsification of reports, and the residents' awareness of the option to extend hours to care for a single patient. The analysis used descriptive statistics. Linear regression was used to explore falsification of duty hour reports by year of training.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The response rate was 88% (572 of 650). Primary reasons for duty hour violations were number of patients (19%) and individual patient acuity/complexity (19%). Junior residents were significantly more likely to falsify duty hours (R = -0.966). Of 124 residents who acknowledged falsification, 51 (41%) identified the primary reason as concern that the program will be in jeopardy of violating the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) duty hour limits followed by fear of punishment (34, 27%). This accounted for more than two-thirds of the primary reasons for falsification.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Residents' falsification of duty hour data appears to be motivated by concerns about adverse actions from the ACGME, and fear they might be punished. To foster professionalism, we recommend that sponsoring institutions educate residents about professionalism in duty hour reporting. The ACGME should also convey the message that duty hour limits be applied in a no-blame systems-based approach, and allow junior residents to extend duty hours for the care of individual patients.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Byrne
authors.forename: Lawrence K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Loo
authors.forename: Dan W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Giang
mesh_terms: D000068:Accreditation / Q000592:standards; D002983:Clinical Competence; D008192:Deception; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D014940:Work Schedule Tolerance / Q000523:psychology; D016526:Workload / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data