Assessing the Effects of the 2003 Resident Duty Hours Reform on Internal Medicine Board Scores.

Link to article at PubMed

Assessing the Effects of the 2003 Resident Duty Hours Reform on Internal Medicine Board Scores.

Acad Med. 2014 Feb 19;

Authors: Silber JH, Romano PS, Itani KM, Rosen AK, Small D, Lipner RS, Bosk CL, Wang Y, Halenar MJ, Korovaichuk S, Even-Shoshan O, Volpp KG

Abstract
PURPOSE: To determine whether the 2003 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) duty hours reform affected medical knowledge as reflected by written board scores for internal medicine (IM) residents.
METHOD: The authors conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1) Internal Medicine residents who started training before and after the 2003 duty hour reform using a merged data set of American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Board examination and the National Board of Medical Examiners (NMBE) United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 2 Clinical Knowledge test scores. Specifically, using four regression models, the authors compared IM residents beginning PGY-1 training in 2000 and completing training unexposed to the 2003 duty hours reform (PGY-1 2000 cohort, n = 5,475) to PGY-1 cohorts starting in 2001 through 2005 (n = 28,008), all with some exposure to the reform.
RESULTS: The mean ABIM board score for the unexposed PGY-1 2000 cohort (n = 5,475) was 491, SD = 85. Adjusting for demographics, program, and USMLE Step 2 exam score, the mean differences (95% CI) in ABIM board scores between the PGY-1 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 cohorts minus the PGY-1 2000 cohort were -5.43 (-7.63, -3.23), -3.44 (-5.65, -1.24), 2.58 (0.36, 4.79), 11.10 (8.88, 13.33) and 11.28 (8.98, 13.58) points respectively. None of these differences exceeded one-fifth of an SD in ABIM board scores.
CONCLUSIONS: The duty hours reforms of 2003 did not meaningfully affect medical knowledge as measured by scores on the ABIM board examinations.

PMID: 24556772 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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