The Pediatrics Residency Training Program adheres to the Accreditation Council Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)’s Duty Hours requirements. The specific of these requirements are outlined below.

Resident training is a full time responsibility. Clinical duties must not be so pressing or consuming that they preclude ample time for educational activities, other important phases of the training program or personal needs. It is equally important that the resident have a keen sense of personal responsibility for patient care. Residents’ obligation to patients, however, is not automatically discharged at any given hour of the day or on any particular day of the week. Residents are not relieved of duty until the proper care and welfare of the patients have been ensured by the presence of a suitable replacement.

Policies:

1. Residents’ duty hours must not exceed more than 80 hours per week averaged over four weeks.

2. Continuous on-site duty must not exceed 24 consecutive hours. Residents may remain on duty for up to six additional hours to maintain continuity of patient care, to transfer care of patients and to participate in didactic activities. Residents are not to evaluate/admit new patients after 24 hours of continuous duty.

3. Shift work, in high intensity settings such as the ICUs and the Emergency Department, must not exceed more than 12 continuous hours. 

4. A duty-free interval of at least 10 hours must be provided between all in-house, daily program duty activities.

5. On-call duty should occur no more frequently than every third night, averaged over a four-week period, for all rotations. 

6. Residents’ duty schedule should provide a monthly average of at least one full (24 hours) day out of seven without assigned patient care responsibilities.

7. Internal, in-house, moonlighting counts towards the 80 duty hours per week maximum. ALL moonlighting must be pre-approved in writing by the Program Director.

If, at any time, a resident feels that he/she is unable to satisfactorily perform his/her patient care duties because of excess fatigue or illness, he/she must report immediately to the appropriate supervisory resident to be temporarily relieved of all duties. As soon as patient safety has been ensured, the supervisory resident must contact the Chief Resident to determine back-up coverage.