Adequate Rest

First-, second- and third-year residents

• Residents can be scheduled to work a maximum of 24 hours with additional 4 hours that should be used for transitional activities only.
• Should have eight hours, free of duty between scheduled duty periods.
• Residents must have at least 14 hours free of duty after 24 hours of in-house duty.

Fourth- and fifth-year residents

• Residents can be scheduled to work a maximum of 24 hours with additional 4 hours that should be used for transitional activities only.
• Should have eight hours free of duty between duty hour periods.
• In preparation for unsupervised practice, residents at senior level may stay on duty to care for patients or return to the hospital with fewer than eight hours free of duty. These circumstances include:
  • a patient on whom a resident operated/intervened that day who need return to the operating room.
  • a patient on whom a resident operated/intervened that day who requires transfer to the intensive care unit from a lower level of care.
  • a patient on whom a resident operated/intervened that day who is in the ICU and is critically unstable.
  • a patient on whom a resident operated/intervened during that hospital admission, and who needs to return to the or for a reason related to the procedure previously performed by resident; or a patient or patient’s family with whom a resident needs to discuss limitation of treatment/do-not-resuscitate orders for critically-ill patient on whom the resident operated.
  • a declared emergency or disaster, for which the residents are included in the disaster plan; or to perform high profile, low frequency procedures necessary for competence in the field.
  • attending educational event.
• This preparation must occur within the context of 80-hour maximum duty period length, and one-day-off-in-seven standards. These events need to be submitted to the program coordinator and program director for review.