Resident doctors following a "heavy call" schedule that can require a 90-hour work week performed more poorly on a driving simulation test than those on a "light call" rotation averaging 44 hours a week who then drank liquor until their blood alcohol level reached 0.05 percent, the study says.
Drivers with a 0.08 percent blood alcohol level are considered drunk.
The research echoes a previous study that found interns who worked heavy schedules made 50 percent more mistakes with patients and had 22 percent more serious errors on critical care units, Reuters reports.
A survey of resident doctors also found that they were three times more likely than average to have been involved in a motor vehicle crash.
New rules enacted in 2003 lowered the weekly work schedules for U.S. doctors-in-training to a maximum of 80 hours, the report says.
"Residents must be aware of post-call performance impairment and the potential risk to personal and patient safety," study author Todd Arnedt of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, writes in this week's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
