EDUCATION REPORT - Medical Residents

EDUCATION REPORT - July 4, 2002: Medical Residents

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

To become a doctor in the United States, students usually attend four years of medical school after they complete
college. Then these young doctors work in hospitals for several years to complete a training program called a
residency.

These medical residents provide hospitals with needed services in return for not much pay.
They work under the supervision¹ of medical professors and more experienced doctors.
Medical residents treat patients. They carry out tests. They perform operations. They
complete records. In hospitals with few nurses, residents also do work formerly² done by
nurses.

Some medical residents work one-hundred or more hours in a single week. They often work
for more than thirty-six hours at a time before they can rest.

Critics of this system say medical residents work too long and do not get enough rest. They
say these young doctors may be too tired to perform their medical duties effectively.

Now, however, an organization that supervises the training of medical residents has intervened. The
Accreditation³ Council for Graduate Medical Education says it will limit the number of hours that residents can
work. It acted because of concerns that hospital workers are responsible for many serious mistakes. The new
work limits will begin in about a year. They will affect about one -hundred-thousand medical residents.

Most doctors in training will be limited to eighty hours of work each week. They will have work periods of no
more than twenty-four hours at one time. They will have ten hours of rest between work periods.

Medical residents will have one day each week when they do not have to work. Any work they accept outside
their hospitals will be limited. Experienced doctors and medical professors will closely supervise the residents to
make sure they are not too tired to work.

Many medical residents welcomed the work limits. Others, however, said the new policy may interfere⁴ with
patient care and their own medical education.

The new work limits almost surely will mean higher costs for many hospitals where residents work. This may
increase hospital costs by many millions of dollars across the United States.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Jerilyn Watson.

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1 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。

2 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

3 accreditation   

n.委派，信赖，鉴定合格

参考例句：

• a letter of accreditation 一份合格证明书
• This paper gives an overview of the Verification, Validation and Accreditation (VV&A) in High Level Architecture(HLA). 对基于高层体系结构(High Level Architecture,简称HLA)的仿真系统的校核、验证与确认(Verification, Validation and Accreditation,简称VV&A)问题进行了详细的介绍及分析。 来自互联网

4 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。