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589 points gmays | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.015s | source
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HEmanZ ◴[] No.45773856[source]
I hope that the actual medical field starts taking note of this.

My wife still has to work 24 hour shifts with no sleep, performing emergency surgeries no matter how long it has been since she slept. During residency only a few years ago she and her co-residents were almost weekly required to do 36 hour shifts (on top of their regular 16 hours per day, 5 day per week schedule) and once even a 48 hour shift when the hospital was short staffed.

Of course I’m sure they won’t. No one cares if doctors are over worked.

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lordnacho ◴[] No.45773889[source]
I've never understood those long shifts. Unless a shift just means you are there but sleeping, what is the reason for allowing it? We don't let truck drivers do 24h shifts, why do doctors the world over seem to do this?
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munificent ◴[] No.45773995[source]
My understanding is that the research shows that the harm to patient care from information loss during doctor shift turnover is worse than the harm from fatigued doctors.

Yes, a tired doctor sucks. But a tired doctor who already has the patient's state loaded into their head may still be better than doctor who is completely fresh in both senses.

It's a hard problem.

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K0HAX ◴[] No.45775573{3}[source]
Instead of 1 doctor covering a 24 hour shift, why not pair them and overlap?

12:00am - 6:00am: Doctor 1 and Doctor 4 are doing everything together.

6:00am - 12:00pm: Doctor 1 and Doctor 2 are doing everything together.

12:00pm - 6:00pm: Doctor 2 and Doctor 3 are doing everything together.

6:00pm - 12:00am: Doctor 3 and Doctor 4 are doing everything together.

This way, all 4 doctors only do 12 hour shifts, and the patient's state is maintained continuously through all 24 hours.

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1. munificent ◴[] No.45777201{4}[source]
Here's an anecdote that might help answer. When my wife was pregnant with our first doctor, she started hemorrhaging spontaneously ten weeks before her due date. We rushed to the ER.

1. Shortly after, a doctor A came in, asked some questions, looked at the chart, and told us she was having the baby tonight. Holy shit our life is about to get crazy and we're going to be parents 2+ months early! He leaves.

2. Several hours later doctor B comes in. We ask about delivery. "Oh, no. You're not going to have the baby now. But you will have to be on bed rest until the due date." Jesus, my wife is going to have to quit her job.

4. Even more hours later, now the next morning, doctor C arrives. "OK, you're free to go home. No bed rest needed. Just let us know if anything else happens."

My general experience with doctors is that you get as many unique opinions as there are doctors in the room. This is not an indictment of the profession. Human bodies are insanely complex, there is way more variation between them than most people realize, and doctors are operating under very very limited time and information.

Having overlapping doctors would likely cause even more patient confusion and increase the risk conflicting treatments. Also, it would obviously double the cost of care.

(My wife and baby were fine. Partial abruption. Very scary and my daughter was born five weeks early, but no other significant problems.)

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2. janalsncm ◴[] No.45777651[source]
Many industries have solved this issue already. Use a pilot/copilot model. First doctor drives, second one mostly observes and makes sure the first one doesn’t make mistakes.
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3. lostdog ◴[] No.45778993[source]
Then you'd need to pay more doctors, and it would be much harder for the hospital to make a lot of money!