Posted on 05/23/2005 2:22:22 PM PDT by FormerACLUmember
...The case of Heidi Baer of Quincy, Mass., who having failed the medical boards three times is now suing the National Board of Medical Examiners under the Americans with Disabilities Act for not giving her extra time on the exam to accommodate her dyslexia. (J.M. Lawrence, "Med student's dyslexia plea: I need time to pursue dream", Boston Herald, Apr. 30).
In Connecticut, meanwhile, Dr. Benjamin Smith is seeking $2.5 million from Norwalk Hospital over alleged overwork and failure to accommodate his attention deficit disorder (ADD). The two sides dispute whether Smith was made to work beyond the 80-hour maximum that is supposed to be placed on residents' workloads; Dr. Eric M. Mazur, chairman of the hospital's internal medicine department, denies that the institution was insensitive to Dr. Smith's needs, saying it "rearranged some of his schedules, reduced his patient load and put him on days instead of nights" and wound up terminating him for performance. He added what must count as one of the strongly worded statements of its kind we've seen in a while:
"The medical establishment is often accused of not policing itself, and not clearing out bad apples," Mazur said. "It was the consensus of the faculty that his continued employment would endanger patient care."
(Excerpt) Read more at overlawyered.com ...
"to accommodate her dyslexia."
Professional examinations are used to determine a particular candidates fitness to practice the profession. It sounds like this one is working.
There was a great "Bizzarro" Cartoon awhile back with the caption, "4 out of 5 doctors agree that 4 out of 5 lawyers need a good thrashing." and of couse, the picture was 4 doctors pumeling a suit with a briefcase.
Tell that to "dog"....LOL
Here's the solution: let's group all the would-be doctors demanding special accommodations into one facility in a remote place and require all of our lawyers to go there and only there for major medical procedures. Let's see how many of the John Edwards types would willingly subject themselves to what they want to impose upon all of us!
Med student's dyslexia plea: "I time to need dream pursue"
That's a great idea! And, along that vein, animal-rights wackos who are opposed to animal testing should volunteer to be the lab rats. (They can volunteer some trial lawyers, too.)
A) make a critical life or death decision on you?
B) operate on you?
C) to treat you after woking after 120 hours, because that is how long it takes him to do 60 hours work?
My best friend of over 20 years has a daughter who is now a surgeon. She was totally upset with the 80 hour restriction, and complained constantly that interns and residents were held back professionally as a result. Never mind THIS short coming!
No one should have to claim a "disorder" to protect themselves from being fired from these obscene resident jobs. The 80 hour a week limit is a very recent introduction, and is enforced almost nowhere. It's almost certain that this guy was being forced to work 100+ hours a week, on an irregular schedule, including shifts of 24+ hours. Last I heard, New York was the ONLY state that legally limited a single shift to 24 hours, and work week to 80 hours -- and a hospital-independent investigation (by the state medical authority) last year showed that neither the shift limit nor the work week limit was being adhered to. In other states it's perfectly legal, and quite common, for residents to be on duty longer than 24 hours straight.
Patients are dying on a regular basis due to the perfectly normal phenomenon of doctors not being able to think because they haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in weeks or months. And a recent study showed that if it were not for nurses catching residents' errors, the rate of medical errors by residents would be 10 times higher than it currently is. Why should professionals with 2-4 years of post high school education have to be constantly catching the errors of professionals with 8 years of post high school education, in order to prevent a massive increase in patient deaths?
Why is this happening? Because the insurance companies (all saddled with expensive government regulations) and Medicare/Medicaid bureaucracies have decided it's cheaper to pay off the damage awards resulting from lawsuits over patients who have been seriously harmed or killed, than to pay residents a market salary for a normal work week (now they make $35-40K/year, for work weeks of 100 hours plus -- all while their $150K plus in students loans from med school are accruing interest). If they paid a market wage to the residents, they'd have to stop giving free and below cost care to all the freeloaders who demand medical care that they can't pay for. So the solution is to turn young doctors into slaves (literally, since they have NO choice in where they work, and NO option to practice medicine without first going through one of these residencies), and thus ensure that EVERYONE who needs to be treated in a hospital gets crappy care (even those who can and do pay full price).
No matter how wealthy you are or how much your friends and neighbors and church can collect to pay for your medical care, if you need a type of medical care that can only be performed in a full service hospital, there is NO hospital you can go to where the doctors get a normal healthy amount of sleep, and can think clearly. The socialists have taken over ALL of them, via the huge Medicare/Medicaid system which no hospital can survive without (plus the federal mandates for free treatment to anyone who can't pay, even illegal aliens).
There are reams of medical research showing that people's brains don't work properly when they don't get enough sleep -- which for most people means 8 hours a night, on a regular basis. But all this research is blithely ignored by the increasingly socialist medical profession and its socialist government co-conspirators.
I can't wait for the lawsuit demanding the hiring of a blind airline pilot.
I don't believe there is a residency program anywhere, where the residents only work 56 hours per week. I remember 100 hours/week being the norm when my husband did it.
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