The 88-hour family: effects of the 80-hour work week on marriage and childbirth in a surgical residency.

The restriction of the resident physician work week to 80 hours has had dramatic affects on resident education and life-style. While effects on mood, psychological distress, and burn-out have been studied, the resultant changes in tangible quality of life have received little attention. Birth rate was considered a measurable, relevant outcome. The resident marital and parental status by duty month was collected from a single orthopaedic surgical residency program for the four academic years preceding and following the implementation of the 80-hour work week. The number of births to residents during these periods were also tallied. The relative prevalence of positive marital status changed very little between residents in the two time durations from 66 to 71 percent, but parental status increased from 27 to 43 percent. The number of births per married resident duty year also increased from 0.23 pre-restrictions to 0.32 post-restrictions. While the individual decisions involved in generating these observed changes are complex and difficult to entirely decipher, it is thought that an increased perception of life-control within the work-hour restrictions may have prompted the dramatic changes in birth rate among resident families.