I went max of 36 hours at a shift during residency, which is long,
but not much different than "pulling an all-nighter" which I did
frequently during college. The argument against these shifts is clear,
but we should also consider the cost (everything in life is a
trade-off). If you are working less hours per year in training, (we did
100-120 and the current standard is 80) and there is the same amount of
material to learn/practice (actually there is more now) do we want less
trained young physicians, or do we want to extend residencies to
minimums of 6 years, to more than 15-20 years for neurosurg? Keep in
mind also, that when I was in practice, there was no protected sleep, or
limited hours. I slept more than residency, but I was available. Is
this something we can train for, or how does it change availability
patterns if during training you are told how important "protected time"
is? We all know it is harder to get physicians to take call nowadays.
Does this have something to do with it, and is that a fair trade-off? Are we willing to have less doctors available at night? Does this mean we keep all new parents from working, since I slept less when I had a newborn at home? At least during residency it was one night in three or four, not every night! How about mandatory curfews for any doctor who has to work tomorrow?
No comments:
Post a Comment