Residents work hard. Residents are burnt out. Residents are in a vulnerable employment position and cannot negotiate for themselves.

Signing this petition shows your support for them. 

ACGME standards permit residents to be scheduled for as many as 80 hours per week, averaged over four weeks (and they are considering changes these rules to be even more restrictive.) I want you to picture working 6am to 6pm, 6 days a week. Thats only 72 hours, so find 8 more to squeeze in, maybe on your day off. Now picture holding that schedule for 3 to 7 years in training. 

According to the recent AMA resident comparison report, nearly one in three residents are experiencing burn out. These symptoms include emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. It is hard to pour from an empty cup when you're working 80 hours a week, making student loan payments and living on ramen noodles. 

The unweighted national average for a first year resident is $68,000 a year, with the amount of hours worked by these physicians, the wage often comes down $16-$20 per hour. While it's been established as a problem, and some programs have managed to form unions, many residents have little to no negotiating power in their circumstances. You cannot easily transition residency programs, it can be nearly impossible to start over in a new specialty, many physicians are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt without skills that transfer out of their industry. It's easily to feel trapped and that the only way out of the tunnel is to suffer and go forward. 

Currently, the only effective ways to reduce burnout is to offer more time off and to compensate fairly, the latter we can do something about. While money for residency spots come from federal funding, as it stands, resident stipends are determined by institutions without federal protections or a minimum salary safety nets, this is because medical residents are classified in a "special category" that exempts them from exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act's minimum-wage and overtime provisions.

This petition asks Congress to pass legislation establishing a minimum annual salary standard for medical residents at hospitals receiving Medicare GME payments.

The legislation should:

* Define a national salary floor for residents and update it annually. Currently the median middle class household income in $80,000 annually. We believe this is a fair adjustment to the floor for compensation for residents before adjustments for cost of living. We also ask that the updated salary policy do the following:

• Account for regional differences in living costs.
• Protect existing health, retirement, leave, and educational benefits.
• Prevent hospitals from offsetting salary increases by reducing benefits.
• Require public reporting of resident compensation.

 Doctors that have completed medical school and are sacrificing to provide patient care deserve middle class lives. 

We ask Congress to hold hearings and introduce legislation establishing a minimum salary floor for residents in Medicare supported training programs.