Despite research showing the benefits of reduced consecutive duty hours and night float rotations, some contradictory evidence continues to emerge about the impact on residents' wellness, ability to deliver health care and medical education experience [ 9, 12, 14, 20- 22].
It therefore comes as a surprise to learn of a recently launched study designed to compare the effects of increasing medical residents' consecutive duty hours with the shorter, currently prescribed limits on their shifts--particularly for first-year residents--caring for patients.
CAMI cited the key variables with the potential to reduce risk of fatigue as the total length of duty day, number of flight legs/segments per day, recovery time in the hotel during a trip, consecutive duty days/trip length, and number of days off in between trips.
This may be due in part to decreased senior resident fatigue during teaching duties given shorter consecutive duty hours and the addition of the simulation-based medical education curriculum.
Study design/setting: This is a nonrandomized analysis of consecutive active-duty military servicemen treated either operatively or nonoperatively for chronic back pain and single-level lumbar disc degeneration with emphasis on functional outcomes.
12 The questionnaire contained information on one possible explanatory variable: the maximum number of consecutive on-call duty hours, reported on a seven-point ordinal scale.
Commercial airline pilots are subject to strict rules about the number of consecutive hours they may be on duty, as well as the number of hours that must elapse between their sessions actively piloting planes.
Retrospective review of consecutive cases.
Another four-plus years of consecutive growth.
The controversy has also sparked weeks of consecutive, massive demonstrations.
