The Effect of the 80-Hour Work Week on General Surgery Resident Operative Case Volume

To meet the new duty hour restrictions on July 1, 2003, our general surgery residency program underwent many changes. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the implementation of these changes, made in part to comply with new duty hour restrictions, would adversely impact general surgery residents’ operative volume. The operative cases of categorical surgical residents were recorded from July 1, 2000 to December 31, 2004. The main outcome measure was the median number of operative cases performed by each resident per quarter (a 3-month period). The number of in-house calls each resident took per quarter was also recorded. From 2000 to 2004, the median number of in-house calls per quarter significantly decreased (27, 25, 15, 10, and 14, respectively; P < 0.001). The median number of operative procedures performed did not vary from quarter to quarter (P = 0.49). There was a trend toward an increase in number of cases performed at the postgraduate year (PGY) 1 (P = 0.07) and 2 (P = 0.04) levels, a decrease at the PGY3 level (P = 0.058), and no change at the PGY4 and 5 years. The 80-hour work week did not adversely affect the operative experience of our categorical surgical residents despite significant reductions of in-house call.