End Hazing in Medicine
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End Hazing in Medicine

Training allows 80 hours a week. At that cap the stipend is $16 an hour.

Unfair and dangerous. Safety is hours that protect patients and trainees. Fairness is pay that matches the work. The harm shows up in resident distress, in patient errors, and in the cost of a broken workforce.

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Five residents in white coats and scrubs smiling together in a bright hospital corridor

Training cap

80hr/wk

Federal overtime starts at 40 hr/wk

Eighty hours. Forty is overtime.

Shifts can run 24 hours in a row, plus up to 4 for handoffs[9].

At the 80-hour cap

$16.39/hr

  • If stipend covered 40 hours$32.77
  • Surgery, 83.1 hours$15.77

PGY-1 mean $68,166 / 52 weeks. 96.9% of hospitals pay the same base.

Divide $68,166 by those hours.

The average first-year stipend was $68,166 in the 2025 national survey[1]. Almost every hospital pays the same base across fields: 96.9% of institutions[2].

“Patients deserve doctors who aren’t exhausted and preoccupied by financial stress.”
— Dr. Shreya Amin, endocrinology fellow, KFF Health News, May 2022. Tired doctors make more mistakes. Stressed doctors leave medicine.

Serious ICU errors

35.9% more

24-hour vs 16-hour schedule

136.0 vs 100.1 per 1,000 patient-days, P<0.001.

Tired doctors make more mistakes.

One ICU trial found 35.9% more serious medical errors on 24-hour schedules[66]. Patients deserve doctors who are not exhausted and preoccupied by money stress[36].

What we propose

  • Fair base pay $68,166 a year is $16.39 an hour at 80 hours. Tie raises to inflation at minimum. Recommendation 1
  • A real limit on hours The 80-hour average as a ceiling, never a target. Every hour counted. Recommendation 2
  • Overtime past 40 hours The missing premium runs about $102,248 a year at 80-hour weeks. Recommendation 3
  • Real tax relief on student debt Deduct the interest residents actually pay, not just the first $2,500. Recommendation 4
  • Clear family supports One clear leave policy per program, plus honest childcare math. Recommendation 5

Unfair. Dangerous.

  1. Bad for residents

    45.2%[22]

    Second-year residents with at least one burnout symptom. About one in three faced depression or depressive symptoms[24]; 16% of interns reported suicidal thoughts during intern year[26].

  2. Bad for patients

    35.9%[66]

    More serious ICU errors on 24-hour schedules. Depressed residents made 6.2× as many medication errors per resident-month[72].

  3. Bad for the system

    $4.6B[59]

    Yearly burnout cost estimate for practicing U.S. physicians — not residents specifically. Conditions that break trainees raise error risk and thin the workforce.

Mental health figures · How hours reach patients

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