ACGME proposes rolling back resident work hour protections
Start here
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has proposed weakening key work hour protections for resident physicians in the United States. The changes would remove the requirement for eight hours off between shifts, cut the rest period after 24-hour in-house call from 14 hours to 12, and drop the limit of overnight in-house call to every third night. The 80-hour weekly cap would remain in place. Critics of the proposal argue that most training programs already exceed their actual hours while underreporting them, and that the detailed scheduling boundaries being removed are the more practical constraints on resident workload. The public comment period closes on October 22, after which the ACGME will decide whether to finalize the changes.
Written by a model from the reports · updated 2 hours ago
Coverage timeline
Follow the coverage to see the different angles.
- STATPickOpinion: Resident physicians may lose some of their most important work hour protections
The ACGME has proposed eliminating rules requiring eight hours off between resident shifts, cutting rest after 24-hour in-house call from 14 hours to 12, and removing the limit of overnight in-house call to no more than every third night, while keeping the 80-hour weekly cap. The author notes that most training programs exceed actual hours and underreport them, and that these detailed boundaries are more workable constraints for scheduling. The comment period closes October 22.
Coverage and heat for this story
Reports so far 1·Heat now 9·Peak heat 10 (Oct 20 17:00)·Reports, 24h +1
Two panels, same clock (pointer stays in sync): top is cumulative editorial reports — only rises; last point = All reports; slope = new reports that hour. Bottom is Live-board heatIndex — 7-day participants with a 24-hour half-life, so it can fall when talk cools.