How residents spend their nights on call

Night call is a significant part of residents' education, but little information about their night-call activities is available. This study recorded residents' activities during night-call rotations on internal medicine and pediatrics wards.

In June and July 1997, on-call pediatrics and internal medicine residents at an urban academic medical center were accompanied by trained observers on the general wards between the hours of 7 PM and 7 AM. The types and duration of activities were recorded.

Residents were observed for 106 nights. Internal medicine and pediatrics residents spent their time similarly. They spent 5.3 hours and 5.7 hours per night, respectively, on "basic" activities such as eating, resting, chatting, and sleeping, and an average of 2.6 hours and 2.2 hours, respectively, on chart review and documentation. In both programs, discussing the case with team members averaged 1.5 hours per night and use of the computer averaged slightly more than half an hour. Internal medicine residents spent approximately 1.5 hours on patients' history and physical examinations while pediatrics residents spent 1.3 hours. With each new patient, internal medicine residents spent an average of 19.7 minutes and pediatrics residents spent 16.5 minutes. The only significant difference between the two groups of residents was that the pediatrics residents spent more time per night on procedures than did the internal medicine residents (37 minutes versus 14 minutes, p < 0.01).

Residents from both programs spent a surprising amount of time each night on chart review and documentation. In fact, they spent more time with charts than with patients. Whether this activity truly contributes to residents' education or improved patients' outcomes is not clear.