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. 2023 Dec 11;28(1):33–41. doi: 10.7812/TPP/23.093

Table 2:

Definition of a clinical full-time effort

Specialty Definition of 1 CFTE
Nonshift specialties
Adult medicine and pediatrics
 Primary care medicine and pediatrics 8 clinical sessions/wk
 Procedural subspecialties (eg, cardiology, gastroenterology, and pulmonology) 5–8 clinical sessions/wk
 Nonprocedural subspecialties (eg, endocrinology, genetics, nephrology, infectious diseases) 5–8 clinical sessions/wk
Radiology, surgery, ophthalmology 4 full clinical d/wk
Ambulatory psychiatry 28–32 h of direct patient contact
Shift-based specialties
Hospital medicine
 Adult medicine 180–182 daytime 12-h shifts/y at academic sites (with variability across the 2 affiliates that were interviewed), and 200 daytime shifts/y at community-based sites affiliated with primary AMCs
For nocturnists, a CFTE represented 144 nighttime shifts/y; not all affiliate hospitals provided hospitalist services at community sites
 Pediatrics
  Affiliate 1 120 weekday shifts (~10–12 h/shift, no set hours) and 12 weekends
  Affiliate 2 126 8-h daytime shifts/y (with additional time spent prerounding and postshift for work completion) and 12 nighttime shifts (15 h/shift)
Emergency medicine
  Affiliate 1 Academic physicians: 1200 clinical h/y (8–9 h/shift, yielding a maximum of 150 shifts/y)
Nonfaculty (community-based) physicians: 1500–1600 clinical h/y
Minimum of 0.4 CFTE required for faculty who were exclusively clinical
  Affiliate 2 “Academic-heavy” track: 20 h/wk of clinical work (8–9 h/shift, or 6–10 h of urgent care shifts)
“Academic-light” track: 20–32 h/wk
“Community” track (physicians without academic appointments): 32 h/wk

AMC, academic medical center; CFTE, clinical full-time effort.