Tow #13 "Are Today's New Surgeons Unprepared?"

For some, capping the number of work hours for employees might seem like a relief. However, for others, particularly surgeons, Pauline W. Chen declares this is not the case. In this New York Times article, Chen, a surgeon, author, and columnist argues that the effects of minimizing the work hours of training significantly impact surgeons' performance and skill.

Chen first starts off with an anecdote to emphasize the importance of time and practice in honing one's skills. She describes an encounter with a friend who had started out like them, as "a lowly resident of the medical center" but returned 10 years later as a dexterous surgeon with refined skills and could easily operations in a single hour that took others three or four. When asked what his secret was, he describes to Chen the hundreds of operations that he had completed over and over again, to the point of familiarity where he could of done the operations with his eyes closed. With her short anecdote of how her friend was able to succeed in his profession only through years and years of experience, Chen effectively sets the background information for her argument.

In the second paragraph, Chen addresses the recent problem that has been affecting surgeons all over the U.S. In response to pressure from politicians, unions and sleep experts, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has worked to limit the number of hours residents are allowed to work.  The recent 2011 limits specifically, have reduced work hours to 80 hours for all in-hospital work. Chen argues that with the number of hours lost, surgeons suffer an impact detrimental to opportunities to perform more operations, especially new trainees who need it the most and are only getting "two maybe three operations each week". Calculating the total hours lost, Chen says that young surgeons-to-be are missing as much as a year's worth of valuable experience. And the results sure show it. After a year or two of training, recent residents have been incapable of "operating or making clinical decisions on the their own. Nearly a third can not perform even the most basic operations like a gallbladder removal on their own". By listing these consequences , Chen convinces the audience that the surgical field is in grave trouble as a result of these working limitations. With hours being cut just as the skills surgeons need to know expanding more than ever before, Chen adamantly urges the hour confining laws to be overturned.