Resident Section Policy Involvement

The AAP Section on Residents has been a driving force in effecting policy changes, both within the AAP and with regards to the ACGME and residency requirements. Below are just two of the larger scale examples of such an effort.

Parental Leave
1995 AAP Policy Statement on Parental Leave for Residents and Pediatric Training Programs

Duty Hours
At the AAP Resident Section meeting in October 2001, held in San Francisco as part of the AAP 2001 NCE (National Conference and Exhibition), the AAP Resident Section approved the following resolution:

to encourage the AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics to lobby:

to limit resident work hours to 80 hours per week

to limit shifts to 30 hours of continuous patient care,

to limit on-call shifts to every third night,

to require a minimum of 10 hours off between shifts,

to require at least one 24 hour period off per week, and

to limit Emergency Department shifts to 12 hours per day.

The revised Accreditation College of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Resident Work Hour Requirements, which start July 1, 2003, satisfy the Resident Section resolution, except that the 80 hours per week and 24 hour period off per week are averaged over a 4-week period.

Given that the overall characteristics of the Resident Section resolution were met by the revised ACGME Resident Work Hour Requirements, the Resident Section has moved away at this time from working to change Resident Work Hour Requirements to helping Pediatric Residency Programs comply with the current ACGME Resident Work Hour Requirements.