A Proposal to Help New House Officers

To the Editor: The residency training year in medicine has traditionally ended on June 30, producing serious problems for trainees and for patient care. Residents who graduate on June 30 often must report for fellowship programs on July 1, scrambling to arrange an early departure from their old programs or a late arrival at their new programs. This is especially true of residents who move to another hospital. The accompanying disruption of patient care is also well known to program directors and residents. As a solution, we propose that clinical-subspecialty fellowships begin on July 15 instead of July 1 each….