Study Finds Doctors' Hours Affect Risks on Road

Study Finds Doctors' Hours Affect Risks on Road

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/health/13intern.html

"Doctors in training were more than twice as likely to get in a car crash while driving home after working 24 hours or longer, compared with when they worked shorter shifts, according to a study conducted by Harvard Medical School.

The study also found that after extended shifts young doctors were about six times more likely to report a near-miss accident and that they sometimes fell asleep while driving.

"A lot of the lay public doesn't realize that twice a week most young doctors in this country are forced by hospitals to work these marathon shifts of 30 hours in a row," said Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School and the head of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"If they're going to require these trainees to work such long hours, they should at least provide them with transportation home."

..."

----------

This last quote scares the crap out of me. They're too tired to drive, but somehow they can still take care of patients as long as they get a ride home? Hmm. Why isn't the administration taking on this issue when it comes to it's possible effect on health care costs and malpractice suits? Not to mention safety, pure and simple?

Ugh.

At the age of 8 a car hit the car I was riding in, I was asleep, knocked unconcious, and in a coma for 2 months. Head was cracked in half, little piece of brain had to come out, both jaws broken, trecheotomy and much more. 18 reconstructive surgeries over many years. I'm fine now and have been for a long time but I will always have scars on my face and neck.

Driver that hit us had just come off a super long work shift. Thanks a lot Dr.

I'm sorry you had to go through that, though I'm happy to hear your health appears to be strong now. But, ugh, what a pointed picture about the results of a skewed, bizarre system that does not help teach residents how to be good doctors.

Salud.

but as a nurse, I worked many a double shift. One time, while driving home in the morning after one of these, I went into a trance like state, although I did not fall asleep. I realized at one point, that I was driving on an unfamiliar road after going across some railroad tracks( I think the bump jolted me back), and I had been doing so for ten miles. I drove home from this same job for five years, so it was not like I was lost.

HuckleB wrote:

Hmm. Why isn't the administration taking on this issue when it comes to it's possible effect on health care costs and malpractice suits? Not to mention safety, pure and simple?

I imagine that it boils down to tradition. This is the way it's always been. Tradition says that this is what you have to do to build a good doctor (the fact that it probably makes for cheap labor in a profession which normally does not provide labor cheaply probably doesn't hurt).

I've been in the room when a number of head residents got their, uh, heads ripped off by supervising physicians, usually sugeons, for letting another resident go home an hour, a half-hour, or even 15 minutes early, at a 24 hour or longer shift. Nevermind, that the resident who left early was now in an outpatient clinic, with no scheduled patients to see, and with the head resident and, usually other residents, prepared to cover any emergency issues. Nope, the explanation from the surgeon was basically, "It's always been that way. I did it. You did it. He or she has to do it, too."

It's more like bootcamp. It's not about learning, about becoming a better doctor. And having that focus can't be good for health care in general. It's like what we know about how best to teach and learn does not matter when it comes to medical school and residency.

Ugh.