Surgical training and duty-hour limits: An oxymoron or an idea whose time has come?

At a national meeting a little more than two years ago, I watched as a plenary session unfolded on the subject of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education's duty-hour rules.1 The chair of the Residency Review Committee of a major surgical subspecialty, a prominent national figure, stood at the podium and inveighed against the ACGME's new requirements limiting duty hours.