GIM Fellowship alumna Dr. Darcy Reed, now at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota, and several GIM faculty members authored a study entitled “Impact of Duty Hour Regulations on Medical Students’ Education: Views of Key Clinical Faculty” that appeared in the July 2008 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Co-authors of the article were GIM Fellowship alumna Dr. Rachel Levine, now at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, GIM faculty members Drs. Redonda Miller, Bimal Ashar, Eric Bass, and Joseph Cofrancesco, and GIM researcher Ms. Tasha Rice.
In 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education implemented duty hour limitations for residents at U.S. residency programs to reduce the risk of adverse events resulting from sleep deprivation. Dr. Reed and colleagues conducted a survey of teaching faculty about their views of the impact of residency duty hour regulations on medical students' educational experience on inpatient medicine rotations. They found that faculty had important concerns about the impact of duty hour regulations on medical students' education in internal medicine, with 52% of faculty reporting worsening in the overall quality of students' education.
The researchers found, furthermore, that faculty members who spend 15 or more hours per week teaching were more likely to report worsening in students' level of responsibility on inpatient teams, ability to follow patients throughout the hospitalization, and ability to develop working relationships with residents. The authors conclude that these results suggest that medical schools need to strengthen the training of medical students within the constraints imposed by duty hour requirements.
