Impact of a European working time directive-compliant working pattern on delivery of medical specialty teaching for senior house officers in a teaching hospital.

With the introduction of the European Working Time Directive (EWTD) junior doctor’s working hours have been reduced and working patterns have changed.1 The introduction of ‘EWTD-compliant’ rotas has led to concerns that training may be affected both by less clinical exposure and by reduced ability to attend teaching sessions.2 This is of particular importance at a time when UK medical training is becoming streamlined due to Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) which has significantly changed medical training in the UK.3 Concerns were expressed by senior house officers (SHOs) that they were missing programmed teaching sessions following a change in rota, in order to provide EWTD compliance. We prospectively evaluated the impact of the introduction of this EWTD-compliant rota on our ability to deliver programmed specialty-focused teaching sessions to SHOs.