Education | Fellowship | Section Policies

Appendix - Section Policies

Supervision of Fellows

  1. In all rotations, fellows are supervised by attending physician faculty. Lines of responsibility are delineated in the curriculum.
  2. Faculty schedules assign responsibility for supervision to specific faculty members, as well as on-call responsibilities, so as to provide fellows with appropriate supervision and consultation.
  3. Issues related to monitor resident fatigue and workload are addressed routinely at monthly faculty meetings and in more depth during periodic faculty educational retreats.

Duty Hours

  1. Duty hours for fellows in cardiovascular medicine include all clinical and academic activities, including time spent in-hospital during on-call periods.
  2. The program adheres to the limitations of an average 80 hour work week and 1 day in 7 free of educational and clinical responsibilities (averaged over a 4-week period).
  3. Fellows will document actual hours spent in-hospital during on-call periods, and submit a monthly report to the fellowship administration. Hours spent in-hospital apply towards the 80-hour work week standard, but not to the 24-hour continuous duty limit.

On-call Activities

  1. Call is taken from home for fellows in cardiovascular medicine. Ten fellows share primary call responsibilities over a 2-year period. One fellow is on-call per night, resulting in an average on-call frequency of 1 day in 10.
  2. The program directors monitor frequency of call, actual time spent in hospital, and overall service demands of the on-call schedule. Program directors review this with each fellow every 6 months, and make adjustments to schedules when warranted.

Moonlighting Policy

  1. Cardiovascular fellows will not be permitted to moonlight within the institution (i.e. Yale-New Haven Hospital or VACT) unless approved by the Program Director.
  2. If program directors believe that external moonlighting is interfering with the ability of a resident to perform his/her duties, or affects the overall performance in a negative fashion, the resident will be advised to stop moonlighting, and that failure to take corrective action will jeopardize their ability to successfully complete the program.
  3. Fellows on J-1 visas are NOT permitted to do any moonlighting.

Oversight

  1. Oversight of the duty hours for cardiovascular fellows is provided by the program directors, in accordance with institutional policies.
  2. Attending faculty are responsible for providing back-up support for all fellows during normal duty and on-call hours.

University Policies

  1. The section adheres to all applicable university-wide policies that pertain to fellows. These include but are not restricted to policies on grievance procedures, maternity/family leave, behavior in the workplace, and professional credentialing.
  2. University policies are available through the Office of Graduate Medical Education (688-1449; Room TMP 236)