A panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine issued a recommendation to medical residents on Tuesday, which stated that medical and surgical residents in hospitals should work a maximum of 16 hours per day. Moreover, the recommendation further urged that they also should take a five-hour sleep break if they exceeded the aforementioned working schedule.

In addition, all residents should be granted one full day off every week and two consecutive days off each month, the experts reckoned.

The panel also put forward a set of rules concerning physicians-in-training, stating that those in their first year as residents (interns, that is) should be supervised by in-house doctors, instead of receiving guidance only over the phone from the latter.

The 17-member panel, which was led by Michael M.E. Johns, a physician and the chancellor of Emory University, and included sleep researchers and quality-assurance experts, released a 324-page document warning, as a conclusion, that working long hours and the fatigue that arose from it significantly increased residents’ proneness to making mistakes, which could come to highly endanger patients.

This recent report is one of a string of such documents aimed at improving the quality and safety of medical care in the United States, the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, serving as the nation’s Congress’ expert advice provider.

Currently, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which supervises residency programs, establishes a working week of maximum 80 hours for physicians-in-training, while their shifts are set at no more than 30 hours. Furthermore, the Council’s regulations entail four days off each month for medical residents, not necessarily one in every week.