Nearly 30,000 first-year medical residents will begin work July 1 under new rules lifting the previous 16-hour cap on their shifts, according to a CBS News report.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education revised its professional standards for accredited residencies and fellowship programs in March. One of the revisions allows first-year residents to work for up to 24 hours at a time during each shift, with the option to work longer than 24 hours. The average maximum weekly shift time remains 80 hours.
ACGME officials said the revised standards will help eliminate physicians' shift mentality and help them become more invested in their patients.
"Medical emergencies don't all occur between 8 [a.m.] and 4 [p.m.]," said Rowen Zetterman, MD, a member of the ACGME board of directors. "When you had one resident who was only there 16 hours, and another one that was there 24 [hours], it interfered with the team-based care that occurred."
However, opponents of the decision suggest the change may actually diminish the quality of patient care. Residents working 24 hours or longer made 35.9 percent more serious medical errors than those who worked shorter shifts, according to a 2004 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Sammy Almashat, MD, a research associate for Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., said he thinks the change in residents' shift hours is unwise because they possess a limited knowledge and experience with patients.
"Keep in mind interns have just graduated medical school. They are the least experienced, the least knowledgeable members of the medical team caring for patients," Dr. Almashat told CBS News. "They're coming up against their limits of their capacity to function and all they can think about is sleep."