Toward “The Genius of the AND”: Balancing Professionalism and Duty Hour Requirements in Graduate Medical Education

Abstract

Although enhancing professionalism and ensuring compliance with duty hour regulations both represent important priorities of current graduate medical education, tension in reconciling these goals has been expressed. The term tyranny of the OR has been coined to express the assumption of dichotomous thinking, that is, that we assume we must choose between seemingly competing goals. In contrast, because there is powerful creative value in adopting a bridging mindset, an alternative state called the genius of the AND has been defined to express the benefits of reconciling perceived competing goals.