American journal of surgery
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The Residency Review Committee-Surgery (RRC--S), 1 of 10 surgical specialties of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has monitored the surgical volume of all general surgical residents closely. As a consequence of the reduction of duty hours with the limitation of an 80-hour work-week (averaged over 4 weeks), we were interested in the impact of these restrictions on surgical (volume) experience since its first year of implementation (2003--2004). Therefore, we evaluated the surgical volume of general surgical services since the implementation of the ACGME duty-hour restrictions and compared this volume with that of previous years without these duty limits. ⋯ RRCs that evaluate general surgery and surgical specialties have responded aggressively and professionally to implement the duty-hour standards per the ACGME. This brief report should be considered an interim communication to evaluate the surgical experience impact for programs currently under the restriction of duty-hour limits. The data provided in the first year of evaluation since the implementation of the 80-hour work-week restriction policy suggest that there has been no significant change in the overall surgical experience for major procedures (per resident), nor has there been a negative impact on Chief Resident surgical experience. A continuum of the prospective evaluation process is required by the RRC-S and other surgical specialties to ensure that requisite surgical volume is maintained throughout the entire 5 years of clinical surgery.