University of Illinois

College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign
Internal Medicine Residency Program

Program Policy

PURPOSE:  To assure an environment which balances learning and service, and protects patient safety and physician well-being.

POLICY:        

1. Duty hours are limited to a maximum of eighty (80) hours per week when averaged over a four (4) week period.

2. Residents must be provided when averaged over four (4) weeks with one (1) day in seven (7) free from all educational and clinical responsibilities.

3. Residents must have a ten (10) hour time period between all duty periods and after in house call.

4. In-house call may be no more frequent than every third night; continuous duty may not exceed twenty-four (24) consecutive hours and no new patient may be accepted after twenty-four (24) hours of continuous duty. Residents may remain on duty for up to six (6) additional hours to participate in didactic activities, transfer care of patients, conduct outpatient continuity clinics and maintain continuity of medical and surgical care.

5. On inpatient rotations or assignments a first year resident may not be responsible for more than five new admissions per day, eight new admissions in forty-eight (48) hours, or the ongoing care of more than twelve (12) patients.

6. When supervising more than one intern, junior and senior residents must not be responsible for the ongoing care of more than twenty-four (24) patients, are not responsible for admitting more than ten (10) new patients per admitting day, or more than sixteen (16) new patients in a forty-eight (48) hour period.

PROCEDURES:

Subspecialty education coordinators should include a calendar of resident activities in a typical week as a component of written curriculum documents. Residents are surveyed each rotation about duty hour restrictions through the electronic evaluation system. The graduate medical education committee periodically surveys residents via focus groups to assure hour restrictions are applied.