The European Working Time Directive: a survey of surgical specialist registrars.

On 1 August 2004 junior doctors in the Irish health care system and other healthcare systems throughout Europe will no longer be excluded from the provisions of the European Working Time Directive. Their working hours will then be limited by law, first to 58 hours a week and then, by 2009, to 48 hours. This will demand even more profound changes for the Irish health care system than seen so far. This survey was undertaken to elicit the opinions and first-hand experiences of surgical specialist registrars (SpRs) throughout Ireland on different working patterns, and the impact of being on-call on their surgical training and lives. The working time directive will undoubtedly shake the foundations of surgery in Ireland and Europe, and meeting the directive by 2009 will require fundamental change if both it and the challenge of providing first class surgical training and safe patient care are to be met.