Chandigarh: No weekly offs, 12+ hour shifts, work-life balance a myth for PGI resident doctors

Residents deputed in emergency, trauma centres of clinical, surgical and super specialty departments report having it tougher

Work-life balance is a myth – at least for resident doctors at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, who routinely work for 80-90 hours a week, sometimes with no offs for weeks at stretch.

At the trauma centre, a junior resident said he had last received an off after 15 days, and expects the next one after a similar gap. (HT Photo)

This even as the Central Residency Scheme of 1992, a directive by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare aimed at providing better working conditions to resident doctors, caps their duty hours at 12 hours a day. Additionally, the scheme states that the working hours per week cannot exceed 48 hours and the residents are to be provided at least one week off every seven days.

In September last year, PGI director Dr Vivek Lal too had issued a circular to all department heads, asking them to optimise the duty hours of resident doctors, and ensure they have at least one weekly off, so that they don’t face any undue mental or physical stress. Needless to say, four months on, it all remains on paper.

The long working hours often take a toll. A senior resident from the department of paediatric surgery revealed, “We often work 30 days at a stretch and don’t get weekly offs. To get even a single day off, we have to apply for leave in advance. These working conditions do impact our efficiency and personal life, but we soldier on, thinking that this is our training stage.”

Another resident, who is from the haematology department, confessed that the workload is often so much that they barely get any time to raise the issue or even think about it.

Ward duties add to the strain

A junior resident from the internal medicine department, who was assigned duty in the emergency department, said, “Since internal medicine does not have a separate ward, we are assigned duties in other departments’ wards. As per my experience, wards such as gastroenterology are the most hectic, and they are reluctant to give even one off a month.”

When asked how they manage it all, the resident said, “It is tough… balancing duty, academics and personal life. What ends up happening is that we cut short our sleep duration and turn to ready-made food to save time.”

Residents deputed in emergency, trauma centres of clinical, surgical and super specialty departments report having it tougher. They say that though on paper, the working hours are limited to 12 hours, they end up working longer depending on the severity of the cases.

No stipend for extra hours

At the trauma centre, a junior resident said he had last received an off after 15 days, and expects the next one after a similar gap. The resident added, “Sometimes, we have to work overtime if there is more patient influx or if there is a critical case in the trauma, emergency, operation theatre etc. But the extra working hours are not recorded officially, so we don’t get extra stipend for the extra hours.”

Rosters tell the story

Duty rosters accessed from major departments, including the December 2025 roster of the internal medicine’s acute care emergency division and the January 2026 rosters of paediatrics and general surgery, showed no designated weekly offs for junior residents.

In general surgery, additional professor Dr Cherring Tandup said that there is a provision of weekly offs for those in the emergency department. But in wards, where the duty is not as rigorous, there is a provision of flexible offs instead of fixed offs.

HT made multiple attempts to reach PGI director Dr Vivek Lal and dean academics Dr RK Ratho but received no response.

HT also tried to contact head of internal medicine Dr Sanjay Jain, head of general surgery L Kaman, head of neurosurgery Dr Sunil Kumar Gupta, head of cardiology department Dr Yash Paul Sharma, head of obstetrics and gynaecology Dr Vanita Jain, head of orthopaedics department Dr Vijay Goni and head of clinical haematology and medical oncology Dr Pankaj Malhotra, at their offices and through e-mail communication but none of them commented on the issue. Association of Resident Doctors’ president, Dr Vishnu Jinja too did not comment.