Not many Americans would give thanks for a 16-hour workday.

But new rules limiting teaching hospitals to working first-year resident physicians only 16 hours a day are a blessing to many of the 150 University of Pittsburgh fourth-year medical students who gathered Thursday in Scaife Hall. They were there for the annual Match Day ceremony, when medical students learn their residency assignments for the next year, held in March at medical schools around the country.

The restriction on residents’ hours takes effect in July, when residency programs welcome the medical school graduates for the next phase in their training. It requires the nation’s teaching hospitals to reduce the maximum shift for new residents from 30 to 16 hours.

Until 2002, many teaching hospitals maintained that it took 100 hours a week or more for residents to become accomplished physicians. Concerns about sleep deprivation and patient safety prompted guidelines in 2003, when the 80-hour workweek was adopted and shifts were limited to 30 hours.

Many said the latest changes came sooner than expected.

Pitt medical student Michael Cho danced across the auditorium holding his 11-month-old son, Min Sung, when he learned he secured a residency at the University of California in Irvine.

Cho, 45, who left a career as a documentary filmmaker to pursue medicine, said the shorter hours ensure he’ll occasionally eat dinner with his family.

“And it gives you an opportunity to learn outside the work environment, to go home and read up on patients. Sometimes the most important learning happens when you have time to reflect further,” Cho said.

Dr. Joan Harvey, associated dean of student affairs at the Pitt medical school, said these residents are no less dedicated than their predecessors.

“I think they are very capable. The desire is strong in this generation to have balanced lives, but the level of caring for patients is strong among them. There are a lot of healthy aspects to that,” she said.

The Pitt students, who will receive medical degrees in May, secured residencies in teaching hospitals in 26 states from Alaska to Maine. Forty of them will perform residencies at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center facilities.

Officials said more than 80 percent of the students matched with one of their three top choices in the national computerized match process that began in September, when students began interviewing with prospective teaching hospitals.

Jesse Wu, whose wife Becky Sui secured a residency in anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, said he likes the work guidelines. “I definitely appreciate that I should get to see my wife a little more,” he said.

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