5 ms·
I am a 3rd year in medical school, and firmly believe that sleep deprivation is a terrible weeding process. If a doctor is sleep deprived I do not want them tou
by mv 16y ago
I am a 3rd year in medical school, and firmly believe that sleep deprivation is a terrible weeding process. If a doctor is sleep deprived I do not want them touching me with a ten foot pole. They make enough mistakes as it is! Sure you argue that they limit work hours, but I can tell you first hand that these limits are only paid lip service to, and I routinely see residents work 80+ (sometimes 90+) hours a week. Oh and the max shift is 16 hours now so calculate out how you get to 80+ hours. You can't report your program because they will lose accreditation and you'd have to go somewhere else to get this scam of being 'board certified', and you can't really threaten because your program can find a reason to dispose of you. real big catch-22.
(just for kicks, if you worked 10hour days for 7 days a week that is only 70 hour work week... doctors work at least 12 hour days, and usually 16 hour days to get to the full 80 hours!)
Oh and as far as weeding out?
Most 'weeding' out happens first and second year of medical school. In my class alone about 10% of the class failed first year exams, and they were forced to repeat or retake the whole year. (which SUCKS when you just paid $37,000 for a year of school that meant nothing). Then Second year weeding happens again with STEP1 licensing exam:
"Overall pass rates for first time USMLE Step 1 test takers are: 92% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates, 81% for U.S. D.O. osteopathic medical school graduates, and 73% for international medical school graduates" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Medical_Licensing_Examination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Medical_Licensing...
Fail a year or a board exams? You pretty much can only be a psychiatrist or family doctor with little or no hope of every specializing.
- joe_the_user 16y agoYou pretty much can only be a psychiatrist or family doctor with little or no hope of every specializing. And that's the problem (not your problem but the profession's problem) - the hope is to specialize whereas being a family doctor is the booby prize.
- yblokhin 16y agoCan you please explain more why psychiatrists get it easier?
- eru 16y agoI guess people don't want therapy at night?
- mv 16y agoyou must 'match' into a specialty. If you do not have a good rank or board scores you can only match into the 'lower' residencies like family or psych
- joe_the_user 16y agoUh, yes but why are thse 'lower'? Well I know abut family but why psych?
- RK 16y agoI agree with this (expect that USMLE is not a board exam). My SO is a medical resident. They really are placed in unstable situations (to use a math/physics term). They are required to work 80 hr/week. If they report working more than 80 hr/week they get into trouble for a duty hours violation and yelled at for being "inefficient". If they report less than 80 hr/week they get in trouble for being slackers (a.k.a. "unprofessional", actually that's a catch-all phrase for anything the speaker doesn't like). No serious thought seems to be given to increasing staff levels.