Resident doc's on strike in England, good reason

http://www.zmescience.com/medicine/england-doctors-27042016/

Crazy new rules where a new doc, they call them junior doctors, we call them residents here in the US, the government is setting new rules to force these doc's to work 15 hours straight, would you like to be at the hands of a surgeon who just spent 13 hours on the operating table?

In the US it is even worse, residents can be expected to work 16 to 24 hours straight! First year residents, 16 hours max, 2nd and 3rd year, 24 hours max. That is cruel and potentially dangerous for patents.

That's really is crazy. Its not only cruel, I think it is illogical: Forcing them to work more hours at a time would only exhaust them and may encourage many a good doctor to leave the profession for good thus may lead to a shortage of doctors in the long run.

Personally I think an 8 hour shift for any kind of work is generally quite enough. I once was, because of serious staff shortages, pushed into working 16 hours per day for a whole week at a care home for adults with learning disabilities and challenging behavior + had to sleep over there every night on-call ( 8 hours allowed for sleep but rarely got the full 8 hours ) thus never went home for a whole week. That I guess isn't exactly like being a doctor doing long hours but, still, I found it pretty much unbearably exhausting. I have now long given up the care profession for good (in small part because of that but also because I was messed about in other ways) and have turned all my attention to science research instead. I wonder if this could be a familiar story for many would-be doctors?

Originally posted by humy
That's really is crazy. Its not only cruel, I think it is illogical: Forcing them to work more hours at a time would only exhaust them and may encourage many a good doctor to leave the profession for good thus may lead to a shortage of doctors in the long run.

It probably doesn't make them better doctors either. My guess is that the rule makers think that more hours means more experience means better doctors, but it doesn't necessarily work that way. Sleep is an essential part of learning.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Sleep is an essential part of learning.

yes, good point; that is a scientific fact.

Originally posted by humy
yes, good point; that is a scientific fact.

Too bad those asssinine politicians don't know that.

Nah, it's much simpler than that.

Politicians have convinced themselves that they can't raise any more money and so have to make cuts.
At the same time we have a real problem that care on weekends and at night is substandard.
So they are trying to make a deal that brings weekend and evening staff and care levels up to scratch
while not increasing spending.

The numbers can't be made to add up unless doctors work these crazy long hours.

Of course rather than all these budget cuts it would be perfectly possible to balance the books by raising
taxes, particularly on the rich and big companies... But that's the one thing they have convinced themselves
they can and should never do.


So yeah, it's stupid. But it's not because they think Doctors are magic people who don't need sleep.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Nah, it's much simpler than that.

Politicians have convinced themselves that they can't raise any more money and so have to make cuts.
At the same time we have a real problem that care on weekends and at night is substandard.
So they are trying to make a deal that brings weekend and evening staff and care levels up to scratch
while not increasing ...[text shortened]... eah, it's stupid. But it's not because they think Doctors are magic people who don't need sleep.

In short they don't give a crap about whether a doctor will make mistakes because he has been on the operating table for 15 hours straight.

Originally posted by sonhouse
In short they don't give a crap about whether a doctor will make mistakes because he has been on the operating table for 15 hours straight.

No I don't think that is it at all.

There are almost certainly exceptions, but most of these people really are not cartoon
villains trying to screw everyone over.

They are just trying to solve an impossible-to-solve problem that they have created for themselves
because in their minds they have ruled out the options that would allow them to actually solve it.

Now over in the USA one party seems to have become dominated by actual cartoon villains, but
over here, the Conservative party is ideologically closer to [but not the same as] your Democratic party,
and is helmed by people who generally believe that their ideology is correct and are just following
through on what they believe to be true.
They are wrong, and demonstrably so... Which is why we need much more evidence based policy
making which is something no party currently offers [here or in the USA]... But they are not actually
evil cartoon villains in the main... Just people labouring under a shared delusion.

Fundamentally we need many more doctors [and other staff] so that we can have adequate staffing 24/7
and those people need to be paid accordingly, [barring in mind the huge debts accrued to become a doctor
as well as the required skill levels etc] but that would require a LOT more money.
Every other department is already cut to the bone AND expecting more cuts, so this would have to come from
more revenue generation or borrowing.... Both of which this government has ruled out...

I also note, that these negotiations would be with the Ministry of Health... But it's the Treasury that sets the
budget. The Treasury has said no tax increases or borrowing, and so the Ministry of Health has to try to solve
this without any more money... Which leads to 'solutions' like the one offered.


It's a bureaucratic mess, created by a bad ideology and basic incompetence... Not anyone being evil or
believing that doctors are crazy super people or anything. It's far more mundane than that.

And it's important to realise this because how you deal with the problem is different when dealing with
bureaucratic incompetence and entrenched ideology as opposed to dealing with evil villains.

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://www.zmescience.com/medicine/england-doctors-27042016/

Crazy new rules where a new doc, they call them junior doctors, we call them residents here in the US, the government is setting new rules to force these doc's to work 15 hours straight, would you like to be at the hands of a surgeon who just spent 13 hours on the operating table?

In the US ...[text shortened]... hours max, 2nd and 3rd year, 24 hours max. That is cruel and potentially dangerous for patents.

We all know that doctors exist to service society.