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Why do doctors not get sleep? It is still the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Start up founders? Fine. Grocery store bagger? I don't care. BUT A PERSON I

Why do doctors not get sleep? It is still the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Start up founders? Fine. Grocery store bagger? I don't care. BUT A PERSON IN CHARGE OF TOUCHING (inside) MY BODY? I want their Fitbit sleep records for the last month showing a consistent 7 hours of sleep.

stevehawk 8y ago
Regarding the U.S., the reality is that it's mostly the students (med students, residents and fellows.. you're called Doctor by residency) that are sleep deprived. After that most doctors are on normal to normal-ish cycles. But because residents and fellows are such solid profit earners for hospitals and the hospital owns their life they opt to over-work them and charge you max dollar for their time. Once the doctor is board certified (post residency or fellowship) then the power shifts back towards the doctor and they can get more normal lives. Exceptions are specializations that are essentially emergency/urgent but even most of them are on rotations like another poster mentioned where they've shifted their own sleep patterns to match their hours. Since watching my friends become doctors (psychiatrists, uroligists, neurointerventional readiology) and my wife become a surgeon I have started telling friends and family "If your doctor looks under the age of 35 then you should ask them the last time they slept before they start treating you. tl;dr : hospitals straight up own the futures of their med students/residents/fellows .. so they overwork them while paying them $40-55k year, and when they aren't working they have to study for their exams.
billfruit 8y ago
Also apart from the Doctors, the military is also notorious for their practice of having too little sleep.
- jartelt 8y ago
  Yes! Sleep deprivation played a role in the two Navy crashes in the last few years.
- topkai22 8y ago
  This is because their job absolutely requires performing on insufficient sleep. Combat isn't shift work. I think (without much data here) that medical training pushes insufficient sleep on doctors due to on-call schedules. While hospitals have doctors, many of their specialists come from private practice or multi-specialty clinics, which rotate being on-call between then (often in 12 hour shifts). The other cause of insufficient sleep is that if a patient under care of doctor has complications, they will often be called, even if just for a consult. Economically, this is likely efficient compared to having hospital specialists (which may end up with nothing to do many nights), but causes docs to train for worst case scenarios sleep-wise.
  - eyeinthepyramid 8y ago
    According to my doc cousin, it's to limit the number of patient handoffs between providers. Apparently error rates are around 5-10% per handoff, so the idea is that if the error rate from sleep deprivation is less than that, it's better to have sleep deprivation.
zanny 8y ago
I get terrible headaches if I sleep less than 8 hours and I'm 27. Always wanted to have more time in my day but I get no time if I can't focus or function. I'd hope someone doing something as high risk and important as surgery would be getting as much as they need regardless of how much that is.

stevehawk 8y ago

Regarding the U.S., the reality is that it's mostly the students (med students, residents and fellows.. you're called Doctor by residency) that are sleep deprived. After that most doctors are on normal to normal-ish cycles. But because residents and fellows are such solid profit earners for hospitals and the hospital owns their life they opt to over-work them and charge you max dollar for their time. Once the doctor is board certified (post residency or fellowship) then the power shifts back towards the doctor and they can get more normal lives. Exceptions are specializations that are essentially emergency/urgent but even most of them are on rotations like another poster mentioned where they've shifted their own sleep patterns to match their hours. Since watching my friends become doctors (psychiatrists, uroligists, neurointerventional readiology) and my wife become a surgeon I have started telling friends and family "If your doctor looks under the age of 35 then you should ask them the last time they slept before they start treating you. tl;dr : hospitals straight up own the futures of their med students/residents/fellows .. so they overwork them while paying them $40-55k year, and when they aren't working they have to study for their exams.

billfruit 8y ago

Also apart from the Doctors, the military is also notorious for their practice of having too little sleep.

jartelt 8y ago
Yes! Sleep deprivation played a role in the two Navy crashes in the last few years.
topkai22 8y ago
This is because their job absolutely requires performing on insufficient sleep. Combat isn't shift work. I think (without much data here) that medical training pushes insufficient sleep on doctors due to on-call schedules. While hospitals have doctors, many of their specialists come from private practice or multi-specialty clinics, which rotate being on-call between then (often in 12 hour shifts). The other cause of insufficient sleep is that if a patient under care of doctor has complications, they will often be called, even if just for a consult. Economically, this is likely efficient compared to having hospital specialists (which may end up with nothing to do many nights), but causes docs to train for worst case scenarios sleep-wise.
- eyeinthepyramid 8y ago
  According to my doc cousin, it's to limit the number of patient handoffs between providers. Apparently error rates are around 5-10% per handoff, so the idea is that if the error rate from sleep deprivation is less than that, it's better to have sleep deprivation.

zanny 8y ago

I get terrible headaches if I sleep less than 8 hours and I'm 27. Always wanted to have more time in my day but I get no time if I can't focus or function. I'd hope someone doing something as high risk and important as surgery would be getting as much as they need regardless of how much that is.