ORIGINAL ARTICLEDuty Hour Recommendations and Implications for Meeting the ACGME Core Competencies: Views of Residency Directors
Section snippets
METHODS
The study's methods have been published.9 From July 8 through July 20, 2010, 1 month after the ACGME released its duty hour recommendations,8 we sent a confidential Web-based survey to all publicly available e-mails for all US pediatrics, internal medicine, and general surgery program directors using REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) Survey (Nashville, TN) distributed by Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.22 We identified e-mail addresses from the American Medical Association FREIDA list of
Program Director Characteristics
Of the 823 total programs in medicine, pediatrics, and surgery in the United States,24 we successfully identified publicly available e-mail addresses for 742 program directors. Of the 742 potential respondents, 23 (3%) could not be contacted because of nonfunctional e-mail addresses. Of the remaining 719 eligible participants, 464 returned completed surveys within 3 weeks, for a response rate of 65%. The characteristics of the respondents are shown in Table 1. Response rates did not differ
DISCUSSION
The results of this study provide important insight into the concerns of those who are most directly responsible for implementing the proposed ACGME duty hour recommendations while maintaining a high-quality graduate medical educational experience for residents. In this nationwide assessment of program directors' reactions to ACGME duty hour recommendations, we found a marked degree of concern about educating a competent generation of future physicians in the face of increasing duty hour
CONCLUSION
Notwithstanding the limitations of our study, the results suggest that the new duty hour restrictions have the potential to create serious difficulties for residency programs to ensure that their trainees are meeting the ACGME core competencies. These data also suggest that programs may be differentially affected on the basis of specialty and program size. Although serious challenges remain regarding the necessary funding of duty hour regulations55 and enforcing those regulations,56 more work
Acknowledgments
We thank Sarah M. Jenkins, MS, for statistical review of the manuscript, and Furman S, McDonald, MD, MPH, for review of the manuscript and suggestions.
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REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) survey tool was supported by Mayo Clinic Center for Translational Science Activities (CTSA) grant UL1 RR024150. Dr Reed has previously received grant funding from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME); however, this funding was not related to the current study and was not used to support the current study.