What do palliative medicine consultants do?

A workload study of consultants in palliative medicine was carried out, in which a task inventory questionnaire was sent to the consultant members of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland. The m edian number of hours per week worked by a palliative medicine consultant w as 49.5 (mean 51.3), excluding time on-call and breaks. The median consulta nt first on-call roat is 1:3. Palliative medicine consultants work a median of 22.5 direct clinical and 4.5 indirect clinical hours per week. This is very similar to the hours worked by consultants in other specialties who wo rk an average 51.3 h per week, but with a median on-call rota of 1:6. Furth er studies are planned to monitor the pattterns of consultant activity and workload in this specialty.