Comments on: Be a Doctor! The Hours are Great!

By: Anders

Anders — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:58:39 +0000

I think the regime you operate under over there is ridiculous. Why the work fetish? Do you need the money? The sleep deprivation is a serious safety concern, and not necessary.

By: Anocow

Anocow — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:48:19 +0000

I am not a physician, but I used to work ridiculous hours during grad school, getting by on 2 to 4 hours of sleep a night for 2 years straight. I had two major car accidents during this period, falling asleep at the wheel on both occasions. The first incident had me drowsing briefly into sleep for a few seconds, while driving at 80mph on the freeway. I ended up rolling my car, missing several vehicles including a school bus narrowly and landed in a ditch on the side of the road. The second incident had me falling asleep and plowing into the back of a parked car. Both incidents resulted in the vehicle driven by me being totaled. I count myself extremely fortunate not to have hurt either myself or anyone else on either occasion.

The second incident was the wake up call that the first should have been, and I’ve made sure that I never drive sleep-deprived after it. On the slightest hint of sleepiness, I get off the road.

The idea that doctors are allowed to operate while under a similar degree of sleep deprivation is beyond ridiculous to me. There is no way that I would have any doctor who’s had less than 7 hours of sleep in the last 24 come near me, let alone operate. The scary part is that I’ll probably be unable to prevent it.

I also think that counting resident work hours is the wrong way to go. Its a secondary and often poor measure of the degree of sleep deprivation, which is what you’re trying to estimate. Instead, you should measure the actual amount of sleep they are getting, using an ambulatory sleep sensor that the wearer cannot remove without a supervisor’s (regulatory board’s?) assistance. As soon as hours awake exceed a set number, light changes to red and you need to step away from the patients.

residentwife: I hope that your husband doesn’t drive when so severely sleep deprived.

By: http://www.kojj.com

http://www.kojj.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:19:11 +0000

Be a Doctor! The Hours are Great!…

Residency training in the United States has historically been a period of abusive hours and intense training. Until recently, there was no limit to the number of hours per week a resident could work. In fact, that has something to do with why they…

By: residentwife

residentwife — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:06:35 +0000

Oh, and not to mention, surgical residents often break the hours, regularly. And… they are told to fudge their hours and do so all the time. Neuro Surgery is notorious for this. Every one knows this, why is this myth of a hard 80 hours still being spoken of like it’s true.

By: residentwife

residentwife — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:59:51 +0000

Um… plenty of residents still work on 2 hours of sleep. I know my husband does and did so last night. The hours are obscene even still. How do I know? When your husband comes home so sleep deprived he acts as if he is drunk – then he is not getting enough sleep. Spouses of medical residents across the nation can tell you what really happens to these individuals after working Q2 for a week straight, to just go into a “regular” work week, or what happens when they don’t get a days off work, but their day “off” is one where they worked 7p- 9:00 a.m. and slept half the day. Normal people would call 8 hours a day, a normal work day, not a day off. The system, however no longer completely ludicrous, is still – obscene. It changes good people into people you don’t recognize, until they are no longer in training, and come to.

By: Dirk Hanson

Dirk Hanson — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:37:05 +0000

I’m amazed that this kind of professional hazing is only now being phased out. Sure, doctors and other professionals might end up working 80 hour weeks, but sleep deprivation as an enhanced learning technique is not a hypothesis I’m aware of an any other profession except the military–where evidence-based decision making on the fly is equally crucial. Time to let doctors and soldiers in training get some sleep.