At its Interim Meeting in December, the American Medical Association-Resident Physicians Section (AMA-RPS) discussed 17 resolutions and 5 reports concerning graduate medical education (GME) funding, resident working conditions, public health and safety, and other topics. The following are the actions taken on resolutions and reports directly related to GME and residency training. We will report on RPS actions on other topics in next week's column.
Annual Contracts for Continuing Residents asked the AMA to urge the Accredited Council on Graduate Medical Education to require residency programs to present an annual written contract by March 1 to the residents who can continue in their programs for an additional year. This would give a resident sufficient time to apply to other programs if their current program chooses not to renew the resident's contract.
Public Disclosure of Residency Revenue and Expenditures asked the RPS Governing Council to study and report on the finances of residency programs. The report specifically will explain the feasibility of requiring residency programs to disclose revenues and expenses and the feasibility of developing accounting techniques that can identify the financial value of the services resident physicians provide. The report will also present current and proposed methodologies of Medicare GME funding.
Data Bank for Poor Outcomes Associated With Excessive Work Hours asked the AMA to help develop a mechanism through which residents can report adverse outcomes associated with poor working conditions such as excessive work hours. The resolution also called for the AMA-RPS to support a nationwide survey of resident work hours and working conditions as the first step towards developing new recommendations regarding resident work hours and working conditions.
The Disruptive Physician was a report the Governing Council decided to prepare after members and staff heard anecdotes of behavioral and communications problems that had occurred at hospitals. This report asked the AMA to identify and study behavior by physicians that is disruptive to high-quality patient care, define the term "disruptive physician," and disseminate guidelines for managing the disruptive physician.
On-Call Physicians asks the AMA to work with the American Hospital Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and other interested state medical and specialty societies to study trends in reimbursement, responsibilities and availability of on-call physicians and the impact of these trends on the timely delivery of emergency services.
Workers' Compensation for Residents, an informational report prepared by the RPS Governing Council, found no evidence that residents were being denied workers' compensation benefits and recommended no action at this time.
