Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Ensuring fair, equitable scheduling of faculty who work 24-hour, 7-day-per-week (24/7) clinical coverage is a challenge for academic emergency medicine (EM). Because most emergency department care is at personally valuable times (evenings, weekends, nights), optimizing clinical work is essential for the academic mission. To evaluate schedule fairness, the authors developed objective criteria for stress of the schedule, modified the schedule to improve equality, and evaluated faculty perceptions. They hypothesized that improved equality would increase faculty satisfaction. ⋯ Faculty perceived no improvement despite scheduling modifications that improved equality of the schedule and provided objective measures. Other predictors of stress, fairness, and satisfaction with the demanding clinical schedule must be identified to ensure the success of EM faculty.