A proposal to roll back work hour limits for medical residents has drawn an angry response from safety advocates, who say longer hours lead to more errors, endangering the safety of both residents and the patients they care for.
After intense pressure from physician organizations, a task force of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) -- the private organization that sets the rules on resident work hours that are intended to protect the health and safety of both medical residents and patients – issued a proposal to eliminate the current 16-hour shift cap for first-year medical residents and allow them to work 28 or more hours in a row without sleep.