Part-time clinical practice is on the rise in the United States for a variety of reasons, including family care, research, and managerial work.However, it has hardly been verified whether the quality of medical care provided by part-time physicians is the same as the quality of medical care provided by full-time clinical physicians.

　In this study, we used large-scale medical data (Medicare data) for the elderly aged 65 and over in the United States.We examined the relationship between the annual clinical work days of doctors and the patient mortality rate of patients who were urgently admitted to the hospital and were treated by hospitalists (medical doctors specializing in inpatient treatment).When doctors were divided into quadrants according to the number of clinical working days per year, the mortality rate of patients treated by the doctor with the least number of clinical working days per year was 10.5%, while the doctors in the group with the highest number of clinical working days per year. The mortality rate of the patients treated by was 9.6%, and there was a 2% difference in mortality between the two groups.This is a clinically non-negligible difference.

　Part-time clinical work styles are effective in avoiding burnout of doctors and achieving work-life balance for doctors.Therefore, additional support for part-time physicians is required to prevent unintended patient outcome deterioration while retaining the benefits of part-time work.In the future, it is expected that the accumulation of research will reveal ways to further improve the quality of medical care while supporting the diverse work styles of doctors.

Paper information:[JAMA Internal Medicine] Association Between Physician Part-time Clinical Work and Patient Outcomes