Historic international symposium examines dilemmas in managing medical
resident duty hours

OTTAWA, Sept. 25 /CNW Telbec/ - A first-ever international symposium examining the impacts of traditionally long duty hours worked by postgraduate medical residents concluded that changes are needed, but there are no easy, "one-size-fits-all" answers to finding the right balance between patient safety, increasing demand for health services, and effective resident education and well-being.

The historic symposium was held as part of the third annual International Conference on Residency Education (ICRE) in Ottawa. More than 1,200 delegates from 26 countries are attending this last of the three-day conference, organized by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Panellists identified several competing factors that need to be part of the dialogue on how to improve medical education and training, while upholding high standards of patient care. These issues include the ability to provide sufficient training and supervision to residents, managing the length of working hours and the ability to meet the real demands placed on today's health care institutions.

"Just reducing hours is not the answer. We need to look at other issues such as learning to manage the fatigue that invariably comes from working at night, and adopt new ways of working. In training doctors, we need to ensure the safety of patients is paramount during the learning process," says Dr. Kevin Imrie, co-chair, ICRE. "That's why we're here today. We've had a unique opportunity to learn from other countries who have tried different strategies and to learn from each other."

In her presentation, Dr. Vineet Arora of the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, emphasized the importance of learning from the past before embarking on new decisions. "Duty hours is the issue of our time when it comes to graduate medical education," she says.

Dr. Arora suggests that there are still more questions to be answered and that the challenges of restricting resident duty hours may have downstream impacts on patient care.

Sir John Temple, chair of the Research Council, The Healing Foundation in London, England, suggests that high-quality service to patients can be delivered with reduced training hours. However, he says, the U.K. experience shows adverse effects on resident training opportunities. "We need to find ways to make the most of the hours worked by residents and make every learning opportunity count," he says.

"Change is difficult for our profession, but we have to embrace it," says Dr. Imrie. "Now that a start has been made, we need to continue to develop solutions to this complex issue. We need to be innovative in our approach and leverage our collective experience if we're going to evolve in meeting the needs of our patients, our residents and society as a whole."

The full ICRE 2010 program can be viewed online at: www.royalcollege.ca/icre/program.php

About the Royal College

The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada is a national, not-for-profit organization of more than 42,000 members in 87 countries. The Royal College contributes to improving the health of Canadians by setting the highest standards for specialty medicine. Dedicated to lifelong learning, the organization is a trusted partner in advancing sound health and public policy. To find out more, please visit: www.royalcollege.ca

For further information: Media contact: Jean-Paul Brasseur, tel. [phone], cell 613-724-0412, [email protected]