Earlier
this month the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education approved
guidelines that would allow first-year medical residents in the United States
to work hospital shifts of up to 24 hours at a stretch. That’s an eight-hour
increase over current rules, which cap the shifts of first-year residents at 16
hours. Critics of the rule change, including the group Public Citizen, have
said that the change will lead to errors in care as sleep-deprived residents
try to function. Officials at the accreditation agency say that allowing longer
continuous hours provides advantages to patients in the form of fewer staff
transitions and fewer complications arising from handoffs from one caregiver to
the next. The new rules are scheduled to go into effect July 1. Casey Ross,
national hospitals correspondent for STAT, joins Ira to talk about the pros and
cons of longer hours for medical trainees.
Science Friday Science Friday
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