The American Medical Student Association is pleased to be here today to support the efforts of Public Citizen to petition OSHA to regulate the nation's resident-physician work hour system. This system, which has been grossly ignored by the leaders of organized medicine for decades, is harmful to patients and physicians, and everyone knows it. We are committed to working with Public Citizen and our friends at the Committee of Interns and Residents to see that these problems are resolved.
Future physicians begin their medical training full of energy, enthusiasm, and idealism.
We are full of dreams of helping those who need the most help. At some point, however, these idealistic medical students are transformed into apathetic physicians who have relinquished control of medicine to managed care bureaucrats. It is impossible to pinpoint exactly when during medical education this apathy takes root, but it could be the period of indentured servitude called residency, the most abusive and inhumane ordeal which any professional in the United States is subjected, that pushes us over the edge. The impact of this ordeal is not insignificant. While we are concerned, and rightly so, for the health and well-being of ourselves and our colleagues, AMSA's underlying interest is the safety of our patients.