MSS09: THE DECLINE IN FITNESS OF MILITARY PHYSICIANS DURING RESIDENCY TRAINING - A CALL TO ACTION
Kristyn N Kraus, DO1; Corey S Keenan, DO1; Alexis Hansen, DO2; Samuel Grasso, DO3; 1William Beaumont Army Medical Center; 2University of New Mexico HSC; 3Womack AMC
Objectives: Graduate Medical Education (GME) presents a uniquely demanding time for physicians. Residents have historically placed their fitness and wellbeing secondary to their training, because of arduous training program requirements. A subgroup of GME physicians are those on active duty military status who endure additional challenges of regular fitness and readiness testing to meet military standards. In this study, we set out to retrospectively examine body composition and physical fitness data from one US Army GME military treatment facility (MTF) to analyze how its participants’ fitness changed over the course of residency.
Methods: Data from routine fitness testing (every six-12 months from 2014-2022) was acquired from one US Army MTF’s Digital Training Management System database. Fitness data was obtained via Army Physical Fitness Test/Army Combat Fitness Test scores. 57 resident physicians met our criteria. These residents were distributed across the following programs: orthopedic surgery, general surgery, and internal medicine. Data was utilized from each resident’s first through fifth testing entry during GME training. The trends of residents' weight and two-mile run time were utilized. We examined each resident’s change in weight and two-mile run time as they progressed through residency.
Results: Between the first and second weigh-ins, the mean increase in resident weight was 2.16 lbs, however this was not statistically significant. Each interval after that was statistically significant with an associated increase in weight gain between the 1st and 3rd, 1st and 4th, and 1st and 5th weighs in at 4.56, 4.20, and 6.50 pound increase respectively. The mean increase in two-mile run time between the first PT test at the beginning of their training compared to each subsequent test were as follows 51.11s, 79.04s, 95.47s, 167.3s respectively, each is statistically significant.
Conclusion: The rigorous lifestyle that comes with being a resident physician and an active-duty soldier is making our military residents increasingly unhealthy. Each year over the four studied, there was a noticeable increase in the mean weights and two-mile run times, correlating to a decrease in health within active-duty residents. In the coming years, GME and the military should shift their focus to the overall welfare of their resident physicians by increasing availability of resources to promote overall physical well-being. In turn, these physicians will be able to better educate their patients and fellow soldiers on healthy lifestyle practices, ultimately bolstering the fighting force of the US Army.