The Nation - News from Oct. 4, 1987

Doctors in New York state will soon be prohibited from working more than 80 hours a week in an effort to ease the strain on overburdened interns and residents at teaching hospitals, health officials said. They said the proposal, expected to take effect in July, 1988, would be the nation’s first limit on doctors’ working hours. No doctor in training would be permitted to work shifts longer than 24 hours and those in emergency rooms would be limited to 12-hour shifts, officials said. No time limits now exist and some hospitals have doctors working 90 to 100 hours a week on shifts of up to 36 hours, a Health Department spokesman said.