- Joined
- Feb 15, 2001
- Messages
- 340
I think it depends on how you define "medical community." Residents certainly know how easy it is to miss things when you're running on no sleep for 30 hours. I don't know how the hell the surgeons do it . . . the idea of actually being in an OR during a 120-140 hour week just SCARES me. But, the brutal fact is that residents are very cheap. I figure my wages run around $7.50 an hour actual work.
There have been attempts to make things better . . . I believe NY State developed a policy that limited the number of hours in-house, but then hospitals snuck around (I just love this) by building a "dormitory" adjoined to the hospital in which residents were required to stay and be on "telephone call." That means you're a few dozen steps from being in the hospital and have to come in when you're paged.
There's a lot of logistical stuff, too. The country is overloaded on doctors (particularly specialists), so there aren't going to be too many more residency slots funded, but there are plenty of residency programs and they need doctors. This means each program gets a few residents and spreads them out as much as they can. Other doctors don't seem much interested in making a change b/c (IMO) they've been there and it "was worse in my day." (True in some ways, but ask 'em what the average hospital length of stay was in the good-ol'-days.) Some residents are unionizing, but our powers are limited because we couldn't possibly strike and abandon our patients.
I have a feeling that the only thing that will change it is for patients to start voting, with ballots and dollars, for more rational work schedules. But the fact is that most residents are good docs, and even a tired good doctor will do the right thing 99% of the time. People really don't know how things are, and they don't see a risk.
All of this is just my observation from the trenches, btw, so don't take it as gospel. There are plenty of people who know more about the big picture than me. I'm just a simple country psychiatrist who got in the biz b/c helping out sick folks is a good way to spend a life, and I really prefer to leave all that stuff outside.
There have been attempts to make things better . . . I believe NY State developed a policy that limited the number of hours in-house, but then hospitals snuck around (I just love this) by building a "dormitory" adjoined to the hospital in which residents were required to stay and be on "telephone call." That means you're a few dozen steps from being in the hospital and have to come in when you're paged.
There's a lot of logistical stuff, too. The country is overloaded on doctors (particularly specialists), so there aren't going to be too many more residency slots funded, but there are plenty of residency programs and they need doctors. This means each program gets a few residents and spreads them out as much as they can. Other doctors don't seem much interested in making a change b/c (IMO) they've been there and it "was worse in my day." (True in some ways, but ask 'em what the average hospital length of stay was in the good-ol'-days.) Some residents are unionizing, but our powers are limited because we couldn't possibly strike and abandon our patients.
I have a feeling that the only thing that will change it is for patients to start voting, with ballots and dollars, for more rational work schedules. But the fact is that most residents are good docs, and even a tired good doctor will do the right thing 99% of the time. People really don't know how things are, and they don't see a risk.
All of this is just my observation from the trenches, btw, so don't take it as gospel. There are plenty of people who know more about the big picture than me. I'm just a simple country psychiatrist who got in the biz b/c helping out sick folks is a good way to spend a life, and I really prefer to leave all that stuff outside.
