Comments on: 56 Hour Work Week Is On The Horizon

By: dirk

dirk — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:33:49 +0000

56 hour work week??? i can’t wait till these future “56 hour work week” residents get into the real world of private practice. i’m in private practice critical care/pulmonary where a typical day involves a full ICU and pulmonary inpatient workload(25 patients is not unheard of) PLUS days with a full morning and afternoon clinic PLUS procedures both pulmonary and ICU. that’s all in a SINGLE day…on call days mean the chance of being up seeing sick ICU patients throughout the night: the next day is a REGULAR day (see above)–nobody cares that you were up all night or are “post-call.” when these future “56 hour work week residents” graduate into the real world i will be sad to see many of them in a corner curled up in a ball crying.

By: nihar

nihar — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:57:30 +0000

i dunno if you realize this, but truck drivers and brain surgeons arent exactly the same type of people, with the same motivation, drive, determination, and dedication..

By: nihar

nihar — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:56:05 +0000

part of surgery is performing the operation and continuing post op care on the patient. by working only 12 hours a day you are sacrificing a GREAT deal of significant learning from observing post operative changes.

80 hours a week is already a reduction what i consider a true residency experience. going to 56 hours a week is TRULY a disgrace and SHOULD NOT be allowed to pass.

By: Foodforthought

Foodforthought — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:05:21 +0000

I have read through these comments and have seen some good points. I also am enjoying medical training and would like to point one thing out to the surgeons and those against decreasing resident work hours.

You say that it will take away from your ability to see a wide variety of cases, from your ability to stay up all day and night to take care of patient problems around the clock, this is true. You acknowledge that fatigue and resident error are problems that exist, as necessary evils it seems. But to add on years is not acceptable and to reduce hours hurts your progression as surgeons.

However, we are missing one important point which stems from the errors and oversights caused by fatigued and overworked residents (which is well documented in the literature). The point that so many seem to gloss over is the care of the patient, which should be ultimate. It should come before all else. If the price to reduce resident error and improve patient outcomes is adding on a year, or two, of residency (at 56 hour weeks) to get that experience that is so necessary, then so be it. The decision to forego patient well-being in an effort to learn everything you need to learn in as few years as possible is unacceptable.

The point is that the hours now are hurting our patients and THAT needs to change.

By: TT

TT — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:15:40 +0000

Why are people saying that 56 hours will ruin us??? Why would you say such a thing? Lol check out this website about European Residencies….

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/is_7222_319/ai_58358816

They work 56 hour limit BY LAW, and what’s funnier is they were proposing to set it down to 48 hours. LOL hilarious. If you think 56 hours will ruin the world, then obviously you don’t think very highly of European Medicine. I think they have great doctors.