Links to Related Organizations and Resources
Issues and Organizations of Interest to Physicians
Hours Watch
Hours Watch provides information and a forum for residents to share stories, ideas, and questions about how to move work hour reform onto the right track.
The Harvard Work Hours Health and Safety Study Website
A valuable resource for Resident-Work-Hour related materials: published studies, educational info, and a place to report incidents of work hour related medical errors, car crashes, and more.
Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP)
PNHP is a single issue organization advocating a comprehensive, single-payer, national health care program.
PNHP New York Chapter
National Physicians Alliance
NPA is a new organization founded to restore physicians' primary focus on the core values of the profession: service, integrity and advocacy, and to ensure access to high quality health care for all.
Physicians for Human Rights
Through research and advocacy, PHR promotes health by protecting human rights on a broad range of issues. Their colleagues at risk section advocates for physicians and other health professionals who face persecution throughout the world.
American Medical Student Association (AMSA) A national organization of medical students with 50 years of activism around the concerns of medical students and physicians-in-training.
StopPagingMe.com An irreverent online resident community with features like Celebrity Illness, Most Annoying Medical Terms, medical book reviews, and more.
Canadian Association of Interns & Residents (CAIR)
CAIR is the national body of Provincial Housestaff Organizations in Canada. The site has an extensive list of links to sites of interests to interns and residents.
Professional Association of Residents of Alberta (PARA)
Professional Association of Residents of British Columbia (PAR-BC)
Professional Association of Interns and Residents of Ontario (PAIRO)
Federation des Medecins Residents du Quebec (F.M.R.Q.)
Professional Association of Interns and Residents of Saskatchewan (PAIRS)
SEIU
A union of 1.9 million workers, with more than 1 million in the health care field. CIR is a national affiliate of SEIU, and we are united to improve the lives of working people and their families, and increase the accessibility of health care for all.
Doctors Council
Doctors Council is the nation's largest union of attending doctors in New York's public and private
sectors.
UNM-CIR
Housestaff at the University of New Mexico are working with CIR for greater representation. Here's what they have to say.
Medical Resources
Medconnect
Forums for Internal Medicine, Primary Care, Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine. Also free access to Medline.
Medscape
The Online Resource for Better Patient Care — Free to join! Free to use!
Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)
Includes resources for medical students such as publications and a section on careers in medicine.
The National Residency Matching Program (NRMP)
The Match connects applicants with residency and fellowship positions, and also includes a useful links section.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)
The ACGME is responsible for the accreditation of post-MD medical training programs within the U.S. The site includes a database of programs.
International Medical Graduates
ECFMG
The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMGSM), through its program of certification, assesses the readiness of graduates of foreign medical schools to enter residency or fellowship programs in the United States that are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
GME in America -- Resident Recruiters
Truesdale Associates, Inc. has been recruiting International Medical Graduates on behalf of some of America's leading residency programs for the past seven years. This webpage is intended to inform overseas physicians how to qualify for and obtain a position in an American residency program.
Legal Information on Residents' Right to Unionize
Legal Decisions: Boston Medical Center
In 1999, CIR won a landmark decision that restored the rights under the National Labor Relations Act to tens of thousands of private-sector resident physicians. Boston Medical Center (BMC), 330 NLRB 152 (1999). The National Labor Relations Board decided that resident physicians met the definition of "employee" under the National Labor Relations Act. The fact that they may also have student-like qualities was irrelevant to their right to organize and to collectively bargain. This decision reversed a 23-year policy set by another Board decision in 1976, that had ruled resident physicians were not "employees."
Legal Decisions: Cedars-Sinai
The 1974 Health Care Amendments to the NLRA brought previously excluded nonprofit hospitals within the scope of employers covered by the Act. For the first time ever, private-sector resident physicians filed petitions for designated bargaining agent elections under the Act. In 1976, the Board ruled that that private-sector resident physicians were not "employees" under the Act and not entitled to elections or any other employee rights. Despite this setback, resident physicians continued to have bargaining rights under many public sector laws.
Legal Decisions: State Public Sector
BMCwas heavily influenced by the fact that numerous public sector labor law decisions had already held that residents were employees. "Almost without exception every other court, agency and legal analyst to have grappled with this issue has concluded that interns, residents and fellows, are, in large measure, employees." Since its inception, CIR has represented resident physicians employed in the public sector and has won decisions to change the law in a number of jurisdictions.