News-Medical.Net November 4, 2024
Physicians are a vital component of the healthcare landscape and along with other medical professionals, they ensure timely diagnosis, treatment, and management of complex illnesses. They regularly work extended and overnight shifts, often at the cost of sleep. However, the long duty hours of physicians can lead to physical and mental exhaustion, resulting in negative consequences such as depression and burnout. Consequently, this can affect their level of alertness and thus the quality of patient care. To protect the health of Japanese physicians, a duty hour reform went into effect in 2024, limiting overtime to 960 hours annually with exceptions for physicians who serve rural areas and medical trainees, whose overtime was limited to 1,860 hours annually.
Although several studies...