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Abstract Background Community-acquired respiratory infections are a leading cause of illness and death globally. The aetiologies of community-acquired pneumonia remain poorly defined. The RESPIRO study is an ongoing prospective observational cohort study aimed at developing pragmatic logistical and analytic platforms to accurately identify the causes of moderate-to-severe community-acquired pneumonia in adults and understand the factors influencing disease caused by individual pathogens. The study is currently underway in Singapore and has plans for expansion into the broader region. Methods RESPIRO is being conducted at three major tertiary hospitals in Singapore. Adults hospitalised with acute community-acquired pneumonia or lower respiratory tract infections, based on established clinical, laboratory and radiological criteria, will be recruited. Over the course of the illness, clinical data and biological samples will be collected longitudinally and stored in a biorepository for future analysis. Discussion The RESPIRO study is designed to be hypothesis generating, complementary to and easily integrated with other research projects and clinical trials. The detailed clinical database and biorepository will yield insights into the epidemiology and outcomes of community-acquired lower respiratory tract infections in Singapore and the surrounding region and offers the opportunity to deeply characterise the microbiology and immunopathology of community-acquired pneumonia.

Long duty hours have been associated with significant medical errors, adverse events, and physician “burn-out”. An innovative night float (NF) system has been implemented in our internal medicine program to reduce the negative effects of long duty hours associated with conventional full-call systems. However, concerns remain if this would result in inadequate training for interns. We developed a structured questionnaire to assess junior doctors’ perceptions of the NF system compared to full calls, in areas of patient safety, medical training, and well-being. Ninety-seven (71%) of the 137 doctors polled responded. Ninety-one (94%) felt the NF system was superior to the full call system. A strong majority felt NF was beneficial for patient safety compared to full call (94% vs. 2%, p