A recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, titled “”To Nap or Not to Nap”, suggests that the verdict is still out on the value of reducing the number of hours that medical residents work and its relationship between improved outcomes for patients, says the WSJ Health Blog.

Nevermind that it’s inhumane to have a medical resident working a 100+ work week and falling asleep over their patients or reading charts bleary eyed, but, according to this editorial at least, the data doesn’t show that patients have better health outcomes when residents work 80 hours a week or less as compared to when they work hundreds of hours.

So will the restriction be lifted? I doubt it. Recently, the IOM recommended that in addition to the overall work week limit the consecutive number of hours that resident can work should be limited to just 16.

As far as I am concerned, if pilots are only allowed to fly for so long without taking a break, physicians, particularly fledgling ones, ought to be allowed to take a nap every once in a while. The financial advantages to the medical centers notwithstanding (free labor is good) residents should not have to work under artificial conditions, as in conditions that would never occur once they are out of residency or fellowship and in their own practices.

Give residents a break–literally–and we will all be better off.

Summer Johnson, PhD