Bonded labor characteristics of U.S. postgraduate medical training

Abuses in labor practices affecting hospital housestaff (residents) have become better understood with the 2002 filing of a federal lawsuit challenging U.S. resident hiring practices. Other initiatives to redress residency employment abuses have included labor action (unionization) and legislative initiatives at both the state and federal levels. This Article suggests that all such initiatives are fated to have limited success because they fail to take into account the economics of the residency system. The author argues that, in several key respects, the U.S. residency employment system resembles the self-perpetrating bonded labor systems of rural Asia. Consequently the Article proposes a radical restructuring of U.S. housestaff employment.