Are resident work-hour limitations beneficial to the trauma profession?
In July 2003, work-hour restrictions were implemented by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to limit resident duty hours. Attending surgeon work-hours have not been similarly reduced, and many trauma services have added emergency general surgery responsibilities. We hypothesized that trauma attending/resident work-hour disparity may disincentivize residents from selecting trauma careers and that trauma directors would view ACGME regulations negatively. We conducted a 6-month study of resident and in-house trauma attending self-reported hours at a level I trauma center and sent a questionnaire to 172 national level I trauma directors (TDs) regarding work-hours restrictions. TD survey response rate was 48 per cent; 100 per cent of 15 residents and 6 trauma faculty completed work-hour logs. Attending mean hours (87.1/ wk), monthly calls (5), and shifts > 30 hours exceeded that of all resident groups. Case volume was similar. Residents viewed their lifestyle m
