J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  2014 Apr;25(2):183-188.

Current Duty Hours of Emergency Resident Physicians in Korea: Multicenter Cross-sectional Study

• Chung SP
• Kang HG
• Kim HJ
• Ryu JH
• Park YS
• Seo DW
• Yoon YH
• Yoon JC
• Lee K
• Lee JY
• Jeung KW
• Cho GC

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was conducted in order to determine the current status of duty hours of emergency resident physicians in Korea.
METHODS
The training committee of the Korean Society of Emergency Medicine surveyed using a questionnaire on resident training status, which contained the total number of duty hours during four weeks of July (first to 28th day) according to the grades of the resident physician. The proportions of both irregular working hours and independent working hours without supervision of a board certified physician were also evaluated.
RESULTS
Responses from 80 hospitals out of 97 training hospitals were analyzed. The average number of duty hours of emergency resident physicians was 63.7+/-10.7 hours/week. The proportion of hospitals for which the average number of duty hours exceeded 80 hours/week was 16.1%. Irregular working hours consisted of 63.9%. Residents in 15(18.7%) hospitals worked 3.7~73.5% of their duty hours without supervision of a board certified physician. The higher grade resident had fewer working hours (p<0.001). No statistical difference was observed in the rate of both irregular work and unsupervised work according to the grade.
CONCLUSION
Results of this study showed that nine(11.3%) hospitals had average duty hours above 80 hours/week. In Korea, training hospitals should prepare to minimize the impact of duty hour restriction in the near future, as well as to improve training quality.

Keyword

Training; Workloads; Hospital emergency service

MeSH Terms

Cross-Sectional Studies*
Emergencies*
Emergency Medicine
Emergency Service, Hospital
Korea
Organization and Administration
Surveys and Questionnaires