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It isn't just pilots, sadly. Hospitals are chalk-full of surgeons, doctors, and nurses that are all overworked, burned out, and half-awake. While I do not hav
by hirvi74 2y ago
It isn't just pilots, sadly.
Hospitals are chalk-full of surgeons, doctors, and nurses that are all overworked, burned out, and half-awake.
While I do not have the statistics, I would imagine sleep deprivation is a frequent cause of a lot of medical mistakes.
- RodgerTheGreat 2y agofyi, the idiom is "chock full".
- arcanemachiner 2y agoFYI, acronyms are spelled with uppercase letters.
- dangrossman 2y agofyi, there is a difference between casual communication style and a mistake or gap in one's knowledge
- joquarky 2y agoFYI, if it's vocalized as letters rather than pronounced as a word, then it's technically not an acronym. It's an initialism.
- arcanemachiner 2y agoThank you, I was hoping someone would take the bait and complete my chain of pedantry.
- hirvi74 2y agoYou are 100% right. What makes this worse is that I Googled it to see if it was hyphenated -- it was. I then noticed that I spelled it wrong, but in that nanosecond of time, I somehow forgot to correct it. I am also sleep deprived too. ;)
- renewiltord 2y agoYeah, but the surgeons and doctors are the ones who want the long hours. They lobbied for them quite hard. It is “chock full” btw
- electronbeam 2y agoWhy would they want that
- Qem 2y agoIncreased pay. Long shifts tend to command a premium. Also if demand happens to be low and you manage to take a little nap, you're being effectively paid for your sleep time.
- bluGill 2y agoIt is common to be scheduled a 24 hour shift - it is expected that you will find time to sleep but will be woken up to tend to an emergency. firefighers and EMTs work this way - sleep in the firehouse (or whereever) but if there is a 3am alarm jump and go to work. I know an ER doctor (in a very rural hospital) who also works this way, when there is nobody needing care he just finds a spare bed and sleeps until someone wakes him. Big hospitals might have enough overnight work to keep some doctor up all night but they still need some sort of backup system because a few nights a year things will be extra busy.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoI agree with you - do you have background links on the lobbying efforts?
- dmoy 2y agoIt's second order, from the AMA lobbying on keeping med school and residency numbers low, to constrain the supply of doctors artificially
- ziddoap 2y ago
- BenFranklin100 2y agoAgree. Not sure what to do about the nurse situation, but there needs to be reform that increases the number of residency slots and ultimately doctors. The supply is artificially limited now.
- generic92034 2y agoThis happens if you are handling utilization of employees the same way as utilization of machines. But somehow medical doctors with an own practice work (largely) without doing 30-hour shifts, as opposed to their peers in hospitals.
- zizicat 2y agoNo, it happens in state run industries. Government will drop regulations to make it easier for themselves any time. Truck drivers have similarly high responsibilities. But it is private industry, and there are strict regulations to prevent tiredness. If trucking would be state operated, we would get 30 hour driving shifts again!
- throwway120385 2y agoThat's a strange assertion to make considering that in the medical field nearly every hospital and practice is privately owned. And the payer in most cases is private insurance. Why do you think that being overworked and burned out is only a product of publicly-owned enterprises when the medical field in the US is a perfect example of overwork and burnout in a private enterprise? The reason pilots in the US have very stringent well-followed rules around flight hours and fatigue has more to do with federal regulations being enforced stringently by the FAA. Which is pretty strong evidence that your assertion is baseless. If trucking had a regulator half as strong as the FAA you'd see similar rules around fatigue. Part of the problem with trucking is more a race to the bottom in the commodity service of moving something from point A to point B. When your pay is directly tied to mileage or to shipment contracts then of course working longer hours produces more mileage or more contracts. Federal regulation actually counteracts this perverse incentive. If anything medicine in the US needs more regulation of insurance companies and private equity owners of hospital systems. Those are the people who don't want to spend the money to hire enough nurses and hospital staff for every shift. If they raised wages for nursing staff and opened up more nursing schools the shortages would go away.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
- nine_zeros 2y ago> Hospitals are chalk-full of surgeons, doctors, and nurses that are all overworked, burned out, and half-awake. This is so true. It is unbelievable how much pressure they are in constantly. This is a high risk for all patients and I don't agree that medical providers are paid enough for the amount of pressure they are under. I truly think that the corporation structure sucking up money into executives, admins and shareholders needs to be cut down. The share of revenue for "corporation" needs to be much much much lower than share of revenue for actual providers.
- candiddevmike 2y agoPart of the reason for long shifts is studies have continuously shown poor patient outcomes associated with the number of shift changes.
- beej71 2y agoI can't tell you how secure it makes me feel to know the my pilot and surgeon have been pushed to their absolute limits before I use their services.
- more_corn 2y agoI just hope that on the particular day when I need them at their best they’re well rested and sharp.
- derstander 2y ago> Hospitals are chalk-full of surgeons, doctors, and nurses that are all overworked, burned out, and half-awake. A friend, who switched from electrical engineering to medicine, told me that the medical residency program in the US was essentially molded by a doctor who was a cocaine addict; seemingly a lot of his students were, too. Maybe it’s a lot easier to work ridiculously long hours when you’re hopped up on coke. The (admittedly limited) looking I did into the topic suggests that there’s at least a kernel of truth to that story — if not more. You can look for yourself: the doctor’s name was William Stewart Halsted. Tongue-in-cheek, but maybe the ADHD medications that doctors and academics often abuse today aren’t as efficacious as good old fashioned cocaine in keeping people working for 80+ hours a week. To be fair, I don’t think cocaine was illegal during Halsted’s time, though he was in and out of treatment for that and, later, morphine addiction.
- hirvi74 2y ago> maybe the ADHD medications that doctors and academics often abuse today aren’t as efficacious as good old fashioned cocaine in keeping people working for 80+ hours Well, I have ADHD and take those meds. They can absolutely work like cocaine in that regard, but I have never intentionally used them like that. Those meds would have to be used very judiciously because tolerance would mitigate that effect quiet quickly.
- derstander 2y agoOh yeah — I definitely understand that some people need ADHD meds to function normally: my partner is one of them, too. We joke during acute shortages that it must be exam season at the local colleges. But of course I know there are chronic shortage issues as well that aren’t simply explained by students wanting a quick boost. I’m mostly poking at people that don’t need it using it to augment their focus. One thing that I wasn’t aware of until I happened upon a blurb somewhere is that Adderall is harder to get in many other countries than in the US (and seemingly impossible/illegal in a few).