The purpose of establishing urology resident work hour guidelines is to ensure the highest quality of both patient care, as well as the education of the resident. This policy outlines the Division of Urology, University of Utah Affiliated Hospitals guidelines for housestaff work schedules, with adherence to the guidelines listed under the ACGME draft of Common Program Requirements on Duty Hours for All Core and Subspecialty Programs.
Residents work long days but have reasonable duty hours. Residents are limited to a maximum of 80 duty hours per week, including in-house call, averaged over four weeks. Each resident takes calls from home approximately once every three nights, averaged over four weeks. Each resident averages one day out of seven, free of hospital duties. There are no call rooms available for urologic residents, so call is taken at home. Night and weekend call will occur every second night or weekend. The schedules are prepared for off-hours call by the Chief Residents with review by the Urology Chairman.
During week days, each resident is expected to appear for morning rounds which will precede 7:00 am conferences (Monday and Wednesday) or 7:30 surgery (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday). The days will be taken up with surgery, hospital rounds, clinics, outpatient procedures, evaluations of preoperative patients, consultations and when time permits, independent urologic study. The work day is finished when surgery for the day is completed, the clinic has terminated and afternoon rounds have been made. At the University of Utah and VA Hospitals the day's activities and case assignments will be made by the Chief Residents, who act under the supervision of the Urology Chairman.
The residents at the Primary Hospital works closely with the Pediatric Urologic Faculty who organize, direct and supervise his/her activities. The work day is similar to that described for the University and VA Hospitals.
At the LDS Hospital, the resident participates in surgery, preoperative evaluation of surgical patients and postoperative care. He is directed by the Director of Urology Education at the LDS Hospital.
At all hospitals, residents will prepare conferences and be prepared to participate in conferences when the subject matter is known in advance.
Continuous on-site duty, including in-house call, will not exceed 24 consecutive hours. Residents may remain on duty for up to 6 additional hours to participate in didactic activities, transfer care of patients, conduct outpatient clinics, and maintain continuity of
medical and surgical care. No new patients may be accepted after 24 hours of continuous duty. A new patient is defined as any patient for whom the resident has not previously provided care.
Residents should have at least 10 hours for rest and personal activities between daily duty periods and after in-house call and must have at least 8 hours.
In-house moonlighting counts toward the weekly limit. The program chairman will ensure that external and internal moonlighting does not interfere with the resident's achievement of the program's educational goals and objectives.
All residents will enter their work hours using the MEDHub program. Monthly reports, which detail total number of hours, days off, time off between shifts and maximum continuous hours, are then reviewed by the program chairman and the program director and violations are addressed accordingly.