The secret horrors of sleep-deprived doctors
Recently, the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) made the reckless decision to increase work hours to 28-hour shifts for new doctors. Here are the catastrophic consequences of their decision. Here are actual quotes from physicians (de-identified with some patient details changed to protect confidentiality):
“I did my internship in internal medicine and residency in neurology before laws existed to regulate resident hours. My first two years were extremely brutal, working 110 to 120 hours/week, and up to 40 hours straight. I got to witness colleagues collapse unconscious in the hallway during rounds, and I recall once falling asleep in the bed of an elderly comatose woman while trying to start an IV on her in the wee hours of the morning.”
“I ran a red light driving home in residency after a 36-hour shift. Got pulled over. It was sobering: I was not fit to use my driver’s license, but I had just been using my MEDICAL license for over a day non-stop!”
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Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/pamela-wible" rel="tag" > Pamela Wible, MD < /a > Tags: Education Hospital Residency Source Type: blogs
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