- Joined
- Mar 18, 2003
- Messages
- 2,271
- Reaction score
- 7
Yet Another Study on Doctors and Lack of Sleep
- Thread starter PublicHealth
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2004
- Messages
- 170
- Reaction score
- 0
Just curious: do the 30-hour shifts provide some time for sleeping at the hospital? Or is that 30 hours of straight work (non-medical person here)?
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2002
- Messages
- 191
- Reaction score
- 0
It depends on where you're at in residency. If you're an intern (which is what the CNN article talkt about), you're not likely to get any sleep, especially surgical interns. The higher you go in residency (i.e. seniors) will only get up when needed or after the work has been done by the intern.
The hospitals do provide beds, but most of the time, there is way too much work that has to be done, pages that have to be returned, lines to be placed, H&P to do,...... Then you still have to write your daily notes on the patients that you normally round on. If you get sleep, its only 1-2 hours.
I wonder if any more changes will happen eventually. I did'nt know the EU had such strict restrctions on work hours. It'll take years before any more restrictions take place in the US, because a lot of attendings I talk to say the we already have it WAY easier than they did. A maximum 13 hour shift seems unimaginable.
The hospitals do provide beds, but most of the time, there is way too much work that has to be done, pages that have to be returned, lines to be placed, H&P to do,...... Then you still have to write your daily notes on the patients that you normally round on. If you get sleep, its only 1-2 hours.
I wonder if any more changes will happen eventually. I did'nt know the EU had such strict restrctions on work hours. It'll take years before any more restrictions take place in the US, because a lot of attendings I talk to say the we already have it WAY easier than they did. A maximum 13 hour shift seems unimaginable.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2005
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 0
America, america...
P
paroquet
Is there a watchdog organization for quality of life issues for health professionals?
Software engineering is also a field rife with unsatisfied employees who work 100 hour weeks in front of computer monitors, but with low pay:
http://www.igda.org/qol/whitepaper.php
Very recently, programmers (I used to be one) have begun fighting for their basic human rights:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/
Does anyone here strongly identify with the problems discussed below?
From the EA Spouse blog:
"If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?" would be merely a point of curiosity. The main thing I want to know is, Larry: you do realize what you're doing to your people, right? And you do realize that they ARE people, with physical limits, emotional lives, and families, right? Voices and talents and senses of humor and all that? That when you keep our husbands and wives and children in the office for ninety hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated with their lives, it's not just them you're hurting, but everyone around them, everyone who loves them? When you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right?
Right?"
Software engineering is also a field rife with unsatisfied employees who work 100 hour weeks in front of computer monitors, but with low pay:
http://www.igda.org/qol/whitepaper.php
Very recently, programmers (I used to be one) have begun fighting for their basic human rights:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/
Does anyone here strongly identify with the problems discussed below?
From the EA Spouse blog:
"If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?" would be merely a point of curiosity. The main thing I want to know is, Larry: you do realize what you're doing to your people, right? And you do realize that they ARE people, with physical limits, emotional lives, and families, right? Voices and talents and senses of humor and all that? That when you keep our husbands and wives and children in the office for ninety hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated with their lives, it's not just them you're hurting, but everyone around them, everyone who loves them? When you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right?
Right?"
P
paroquet
According to researchers in Germany, physicians have lower-than-average life expectancies, and low quality of life. They attribute this to the enormous workload and stress levels.
http://www.med.uni-giessen.de/psych...ik/projects.htm
It's supremely ironic that physicians themselves have very unhealthy (stress + lack of sleep + bad diets, usually) lives.
Can anyone confirm or refute this for me? I'm on the verge of deciding to go into medicine, but I came across that researcher's studies.
Shoot, I recently left another field that offered low quality of life and high stress, and now I discover that medicine is not much different...
http://www.med.uni-giessen.de/psych...ik/projects.htm
It's supremely ironic that physicians themselves have very unhealthy (stress + lack of sleep + bad diets, usually) lives.
Can anyone confirm or refute this for me? I'm on the verge of deciding to go into medicine, but I came across that researcher's studies.
Shoot, I recently left another field that offered low quality of life and high stress, and now I discover that medicine is not much different...
Similar threads
