Original scientific articleShould All Duty Hours Be the Same? Results of a National Survey of Surgical Trainees
Section snippets
Methods
An Internet-based survey was created using EZ-Surveymaker, a commercially available software package. Created by the Resident and Associate Society of the American College of Surgeons (RAS-ACS), this assessment was part of a larger survey of resident opinions on the impact of a broad range of factors in their education (see Appendix, available online). Because no validated surveys exist to assess resident opinions on their education, a literature review was conducted to identify specific
Results
Five hundred ninety-nine of 8,172 RAS-ACS residents and Fellows responded to our survey (7.3%). Their demographic information is listed in Table 1 and is representative of RAS-ACS membership.
Forty-one percent (n = 246) of respondents stated that DHR were a considerable (n = 70; 11.7%) or moderate (n = 176; 29.6%) barrier to their education. Fewer than one-third (n = 186; 31%) of residents reported that their education was not hindered by DHR. Another 27% (n = 164) stated that the DHR were a
Discussion
The major finding of our study is that 4 years after implementation of DHR, surgery residents remained ambivalent about the impact that these regulations had on their training and about the optimal number of hours for their training. In addition, as surgery residents approached graduation, they were increasingly likely to view DHR as a detriment to their education, and to believe that the optimal number of weekly work hours was >80. These findings are even more meaningful considering that many
Author Contributions
Study conception and design: Moalem, Cherr, Freiburg, Brewster, James
Acquisition of data: Moalem, Freiburg, Brewster, James
Analysis and interpretation of data: Moalem, Salzman, Ruan, Farkas
Drafting of manuscript: Moalem, Salzman, Ruan, Cherr, Freiburg, Farkas, Brewster, James
Critical revision: Moalem, Salzman, Ruan, Cherr, Freiburg, Farkas, Brewster, James
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank Peg Haar and Howard Tanzman for their assistance with the distribution of the survey and compilation of the results, and Wendy Husser for her editorial review.
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