Dhruv Khullar, M.D., a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, asks whether physicians-in-training should work fewer hours.

He concludes with these remarks:

“The right answer on how many hours residents should work may be more nuanced than we’ve been willing to accept. It isn’t the same today as it was 20 years ago, as the complexity of caring for patients and medical technology continue to evolve. It varies by subspecialty — discontinuity may have graver consequences for neurosurgery, say, than for radiology. And it hinges more on the character of work than the length of it — I’d spend twice as long at a patient’s bedside if I could spend half as long at a computer.

“Ultimately, the answer may be as philosophical as it is empirical. What kind of doctors do we want to be? What kind of doctors do patients want us to be? And does what we can’t measure still matter in a profession that’s now judged and motivated by what we can?”