How Good Is a Doctor at the End of a 28-Hour Shift?

September 8, 2017

(STAT News) – It isn’t terribly reassuring to know that doctors who might need to make life or death decisions about your health could be doing so after having been awake for so long. Would they be on top of their game at hour 16? What about hour 22? In medicine, the devil can be in the details — what if the doctor was too tired to notice something small that might not actually be that small? But according to the organization that sets the rules on how long resident physicians like me are allowed to work, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), this is OK. And just so we are clear, as you read this, thousands of young resident physicians are working in hospitals for shifts lasting up to 28 hours every few days and providing care to thousands of Americans.