Junior doctors' hours

BMJ 1995;311:1298-1299 (11 November)

Letters

Junior doctors' hours

Flexible partial shifts can work

EDITOR,--There is a lot in the press about junior doctors' hoursat the moment, none of which is very joyful.¹ We believe thatthe continuing failure to reduce hours in a way that is satisfactoryto both junior and senior doctors and management is caused byseveral factors. Firstly, the present alternatives to on callwork are full and partial shifts. The only full shift that isfully staffed that we know of is for a 44 hour week, and thereare external pressures to change that. Partial shifts createseveral problems: doctors lose their social life, post-takerounds are few, education suffers, and managers find it impossibleto recruit staff. Secondly, the system currently assumes thatdoctors must work Monday to Friday, that if they work at theweekend then that is bad luck, that ward rounds occur once aday, and that no . . . [Full text of this article]