Resident physicians are working long hours, survey data shows, with doctors training in general surgery reporting that they work 75 hours a week, on average. Family medicine residents said they worked an average of 64.3 hours a week, and residents training in internal medicine estimated they worked 67.3 hours a week, on average, according to a recently released AMA-exclusive report.
Based on survey responses from more than 3,000 resident and fellow physicians across 20 states and 29 health care organizations, the AMA National Resident Comparison Report is exclusive data to the AMA and the Organizational Biopsy®. The report reflects 2025 trends on five key performance indicators—job satisfaction, job stress, burnout, intent to leave and feeling valued—as well as additional analysis of drivers and key findings. Register to download the national resident companion report for a selection of data from the complete National Comparison Report.
The report reveals how much time residents and fellows are spending on direct and indirect patient care, as well as the hours they toil away on administrative tasks, research and teaching every week. The survey data also uncovers differences in how many hours different physicians in training spend per week on particular responsibilities.
Resident physicians work about 65 hours a week
When residents and fellows were asked to estimate how much time they spent per week on activities related to their training program, in 2025, they reported working an average of 65.6 hours a week.
Of that time, residents and fellows said in 2025 that they spent an average of 27.6 hours on direct patient care and 19.6 hours a week on indirect patient care. The physicians said that they spent about 5.8 hours a week on teaching and 3.6 hours on research, on average. They reported spending an average of 6.5 hours a week on administrative tasks. The remainder of the time was spent on other responsibilities.
Though the data on work time was similar to the previous year’s report, physicians in training said in 2024 that they worked an average of 65.9 hours a week in the following fashion:
- 26.3 hours—direct patient care.
- 21.1—indirect patient care.
- 7.1—administrative tasks.
- 5.4—teaching.
- 3.9—research.
- 2.1—other responsibilities.
Physicians who had completed residency or fellowship training reported working 58.4 hours a week.
“Residents and fellows also work longer hours than their [more senior] physician counterparts, which is not a surprise for those who are familiar with how we train residents and fellows,” said Michael Tutty, PhD, MHA, the AMA’s group vice president of professional satisfaction and practice sustainability, when discussing an earlier study about resident work hours and burnout. “There’s something very unique about the training environment and the hours worked.”
Though residents and fellows may have longer workweeks, it is unclear whether those longer hours translate into higher rates of stress or burnout. Research has drawn at-times conflicting conclusions about whether it is the hours themselves that leads to negative consequences for physicians in training.
As the leader in physician well-being, the AMA provides organizational solutions that help physicians and health systems optimize practice efficiency, reduce burnout and rediscover the Joy in Medicine®.
Differences seen in some populations
Physicians in their second or third years of residency reported working longer hours, on average, than did their counterparts in internship or fellowship training, the report shows. The average weekly work hour figures, broken down by training year, were:
- PGY-1: 64.4 hours.
- PGY-2: 67.8 hours.
- PGY-3: 67.9 hours.
- PGY-4: 66.5 hours.
- Fellows: 59.9 hours.
PGY-2s spent the most time, 29 hours a week, on direct patient care, and PGY-1s the most time, an average of 21.6 hours, on indirect patient care. PGY-3s reported spending the most hours, 7.5, on average, on administrative tasks. PGY-4s spent the most time teaching, at 7 hours a week, and fellows, at 4.4 hours a week, reported spending more time on research than did their counterparts in other stages of training.
Female residents and fellows reported working more hours per week—66.8, on average, compared with 64.6 hours for male residents—and slightly more time on administrative tasks, direct and indirect patient care, though slightly less on teaching, research and other tasks.
Women physicians in training said that each week they spent an average of:
- 28.8 hours on direct patient care.
- 20 hours on indirect patient care.
- 6.6 hours on administrative tasks.
- 5.6 hours on teaching.
- 3.5 hours on research.
Male physicians in training, in comparison, reported average weekly time spend of:
- 26.2 hours on direct patient care.
- 19.3 hours on indirect patient care
- 6.5 hours on administrative work.
- 6.1 hours on teaching.
- 3.8 hours on research.
Time will yield more sophisticated results
There were, however, important considerations in assessing data from residents and fellows. Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education data shows 167,083 active residents and fellows, while the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that there are more than 1 million active physicians in the U.S.
The AMA has offered the resident and fellow well-being survey since 2021, and some of the questions were added in 2023. Organizations also were not required to use all available questions, nor were respondents required to answer them all. Additionally, physicians in training defined for themselves what constituted their work hours, deciding whether to include in their work hours the time they spent preparing for a shift or completing required tasks afterward.
Heather Farley, MD, MHCDS, the AMA’s vice president of professional satisfaction and practice sustainability, encouraged more organizations with residency and fellowship training programs to take in part in the AMA’s organizational well-being assessment (PDF) work or email [email protected] for more information.
“Our insights will deepen as participation grows and measurement becomes more consistent over time—bringing greater clarity to the unique needs of physicians in training,” Dr. Farley said.
