Junior Doctors' Hours

Perspectives on the working hours of Australian junior doctors

The working hours of junior doctors have been a focus of discussion in Australia since the mid-1990s. Several national organizations, including the Australian Medical Association (AMA), have been prominent in advancing this agenda and have collected data (most of which is self-reported) on the working hours of junior doctors over the last 15 years. Overall, the available data indicate that work...

The value of the post-take ward round: are new working patterns compromising junior doctor education?

This prospective observational study assessed the impact of the changes in junior doctors' working hours and waiting-time initiatives on teaching and learning opportunities for junior doctors in acute medicine. An audit cycle of post-take ward rounds including all medical admissions to an urban teaching hospital was conducted. During two seven-day periods in July 2006 and 2008, 317 and 354 pati...

Improving phlebotomy handover of untaken blood tests to junior doctors

A lack of communication between junior doctors and phlebotomists means untaken blood tests are often not recognised until late in a junior doctor's day, resulting in additional hours worked, delays in patient management, and potentially avoidable handover of additional work to on-call doctors. We set out to improve communication, with an aim that ward doctors should be made aware of patients wh...

Junior doctors' hours: the way forward.

Two and a half years ago all the key players signed up to the principles in J7unior Doctors: The New Deal.' 2 Its central aim was that "by the end of 1994 junior doctors working in the busiest jobs will have maximum average hours of duty 72 per week."3 Initial progress seemed rapid: in the year to September 1991 the number of junior doctors contracted to work for more than 83 hours a week had h...

Do Financial Incentives Increase Doctors’ Willingness to Publish Research? – A Pilot Study of 21 Junior Doctors

Improving out-of-hours intravenous fluid prescribing for junior doctors: a prescription label

Junior doctors are routinely asked to prescribe intravenous fluids (IVF) out-of-hours. Given time constraints and the number of unfamiliar patients, there is uncertainty about their prescription accuracy and safety, particularly in patients who have specific fluid balance requirements. An IVF prescription label was devised for the fluids section of the adult drug chart indicating important pati...