Posted on 08/25/2022 11:48:21 PM PDT by zeestephen
Over 500 Israeli medical interns and residents resigned on Thursday in protest of the Health Ministry delaying a plan to shorten their shifts from 26 to 18 hours, the Mirsham medical residents organization said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
That number may be deceptive since a large share are Jewish physicians born in the USA and other coutries.
In the USA, 30% of our clinical physicians and 25% of our dentists are foreign born.
Those are 2019 USA numbers, so the percentages might be higher or lower because of the Covid disruption.
TWENTY SIX HOUR SHIFTS??!!!
That seems guranteed to lead to tired doctors making unfixable mistakes! They are only human.
The hospitals will probably say:
‘It’s always been this way. It was how I first experienced it decades ago. Now it’s your turn to suffer, I mean to learn!”
Anyway, I know USA interns and residents have been working 24 hour shifts since at least the 1960s.
And tens of thousands die every year from medical errors.
24 hour shifts are too long for anyone regardless of the work.
Back in my early 20’s, with a young man’s metabolism, I could be up all night and still be functional at work the next day (which would be more than 24 hours of being up). But I could not see doing shifts like that on a regular basis.
After 26 hours, how much rest time do they get?
When my dad was an intern in the thirties he worked 24hour shifts
I know a guy that was in the process of becoming a pastor. Part of his training was working at the major trauma center downtown. He pulled 24 hour shifts. And he was in his mid 50’s.
I can still pull all-nighters at 61, but it is working on reports and stuff on my own so I’m in control. If I had to deal with other people that were going through traumatic things I’d probably snap after the third person.
Hmm. I was in the hospital years ago and in terrible pain and the morphine wasn’t doing anything. So I kept asking for ice packs. After requesting a third ice pack in as many hours the nurse snapped at me! At the time I wasn’t in any mood to be understanding of her situation.
The medical community across the globe proved it is a criminal enterprise.
Amen to that.
If this is correct, it ticks me off. When a person is younger, you can push yourself harder and longer. I did this myself a number of times. Working in a chemical plant, I learned about a US federal Hogg Law when control room operators kicked me out when I hit 16 hours IIRC.
In the privacy of my office, out of an organized labor situation, I would still pull a 24 hour+ work binge occasionally.
At some point of work, a person is going to become less efficient, the mind dulls and a tunnel vision starts to set in. Keep going and at some point, a person is going to get dangerous due to poor judgment or physical impairment. I crossed that line once when driving a few miles home. Caffeine can only go so far.
Many times mid-career and much less frequently late career, the type of work I was often doing was 3-5 day field tests that required regular verification or oversight. When solo on this work, I structured it to where I'd travel (usually fly) the day before then put in a regular day getting things setup. After that, I'd work onsite for an hour or so then a 4-6 hour break. Repeat this for however many days. I could go a few weeks like this without loosing much if any mental or physical diminishment. The last day on site would be a long day of shutdown, debrief and securing equipment followed by a plane flight home.
There's no way in hell that I'd want a medical person working on me either during or several days after a 26 hour or the so awful 18 hour shift. Their mind is dulled and reflexes are impaired. Period. I wonder how many are popping pills to keep up with the grind?
My opinions…
That is a guaranteed way for a doctor to make bad decisions. No telling how many people have died at the hands of an exhausted doctor.
When I was a resident I could work all day, be on call overnight and not sleep a minute, and then work all the way through until 8pm the next day. Then have to be in the next day by 7:30 am for another full day.
The third leading cause of death in the USA is MEDICAL MALPRACTICE. FAUCI MADE IT #1.
No wonder the healthcare provider physicians don’t have time to research ‘CoVID’ articles. Or so they tell us.
I had a similar circumstance. In 1996 I had colo-rectal cancer. After surgery to remove a large tumor (on April 1st!), my Hospital room was getting cold. I kept asking for more blankets and complaining about being cold. The staff was getting short with me.
Finally, the charge nurse stormed into the room and asked me what my problem was. When I said that I was cold, and asked what the temp in the room was, she finally noticed it was chilly in the room. When she turned to check the heater (a steam radiator), she found that it was turned off. Apologetically, she turned on the heat. The staff was very nice to me the rest of that shift.
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