For Immediate Release

Washington D.C. November 1, 2001 - The Association of American Colleges (AAMC) has issued new guidelines for graduate medical education (GME), the second stage of the formal educational process that prepares doctors for medical practice. The new policies focus on reforming GME in a comprehensive manner, rather than just addressing the ongoing controversy over resident duty hours.

"Focusing on excessive duty hours is to focus on the symptoms not the root cause of the problems affecting GME. The central issue that this document confronts head on is improving the quality of GME," said AAMC Jordan J. Cohen, M.D. "Our principal challenges as medical educators is to ensure an optimal learning environment for residents that maintains appropriate supervision, and creates a proper balance between education and patient care activities."

The AAMC believes teaching hospitals, medical schools and GME program leadership and faculty must direct their attention to four key areas: institutional oversight and program support, the education program, supervision of residents in patient care and resident duty hours. Some highlights of the new GME guidelines:

Institutional sponsors of GME should exercise strong, centralized oversight for all of their GME programs, and should have written policies and procedures for supervising residents at various stages of training.

Residents must have opportunities to exercise, under supervision, graded, progressive responsibility for the care of patients.

Program faculty is responsible for determining when a resident is unable to function at the level required to provide safe, high-quality care to assigned patients, and must have the authority to adjust assigned duty hours as necessary.

Residents should be on duty no more than 80 hours per week and no more than 24 hours consecutively; moreover, they should have at least 8 hours duty-free between periods on call and 24 consecutive hours free of all duty every seven days.

"Putting these guidelines into practice will help us to achieve our solemn professional obligations to protect patient safety and deliver high quality care, while still ensuring that residents receive an excellent education," said AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) currently establishes the standards that GME programs must fulfill to achieve accreditation. But these standards represent the minimum levels of oversight and support required for GME programs to meet expectations. The AAMC believes its member institutions-sponsors of most of the nation's GME programs-can and should exceed those standards.

A copy of the AAMC Policy Statement on Graduate Medical Education is available at www.aamc.org/gmepolicy.

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The Association of American Medical Colleges represents the 125 accredited U.S. medical schools; the 16 accredited Canadian medical schools; some 400 major teaching hospitals, including 74 Veterans Administration medical centers; 91 academic and professional societies representing nearly 88,000 faculty members; and the nation's 67,000 medical students and 102,000 residents. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org/newsroom.

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The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association representing all 129 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and 94 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 109,000 faculty members, 67,000 medical students, and 104,000 resident physicians. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org/newsroom.

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