The first thing we care about is the patients. Most studies that have looked at longer hours vs more handoffs have shown equipoise in terms of death and serious

The first thing we care about is the patients. Most studies that have looked at longer hours vs more handoffs have shown equipoise in terms of death and serious adverse events. So, in that setting, most of us feel comfortable to think about what we want for ourselves as trainees and educators. From the perspective of a trainee, on the rotations where duty hours even become a question, I was working 60-80 hour weeks. You can achieve that in a number of ways. One way is to work 5-6 days per week of 12-14 hour shifts. This sounds reasonable until you realize, a few months in, that you are at work from 7a-7-9p (assuming you're working daytime shifts) 6 days a week. It's monotonous and exhausting. You can achieve the same by mixing some 24h days into the mix. During my training, this could only happen starting in our second year and beyond. Suddenly, I had several days with ample free time to buy groceries, do laundry, think about the world around me. Medical training is extremely long and time intensive. Partitioning time into 24 hour chunks can surprisingly be preferable when 80 hour weeks are the rule (when safe for patients).