Re: Young doctors still too tired for safety

[Guest guest]

During my days of clinical nursing practice I often worked with many a bleary-eyed young doctor who sometimes seemed not able to concentrate on what he/she was up to. It made me quite nervous since patient safety is, after all, a prime directive for all who deliver health care.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Eleanor Roosevelt

From: <rumjal@...>Subject: [Flu] Young doctors still too tired for safetyFlu Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 11:56 AM

Report: Young doctors still too tired for safetyWASHINGTON – Doctors-in-training are still too exhausted, says a newreport that calls on hospitals to let them have a nap.Regulations that capped the working hours of bleary-eyed young doctorscame just five years ago, limiting them to about 80 hours a week.Tuesday, the prestigious Institute of Medicine recommended easing theworkload a bit more: Anyone working the maximum 30-hour shift shouldget an uninterrupted five-hour break for sleep after 16 hours.At issue is how to balance patient safety with the education ofroughly 100,000 medical residents, doctors fresh out of medical schoolwho spend the next three to seven years in on-the-job training fortheir specialty. The long hours are in some ways a badge of theprofession; doctors can't simply clock out if a patient is in danger.But sleep deprivation fogs the brain, a problem that can

lead toserious medical mistakes. So in 2003, the Accreditation Council forGraduate Medical Education issued the first caps. Before then,residents in some specialties could average 110 hours a week.The government asked the IOM to study the current caps. Violations ofcurrent limits are common and residents seldom complain, the committeefound. While quality of life has improved, there's still a lot of burnout.And despite one study that found residents made more errors whileworking longer shifts, patient safety depends on so many factors thatit's impossible to tell yet if the caps helped that problem, thereport said.So it also recommends: _Experienced physicians should more closely supervise residents._Better overlap of schedules during shift changes to reduce chancesfor error as one doctor hands patients' care over to the next._Increase mandatory days off each month, and extend

hours off betweenshifts depending on how long the resident worked, during day or night.The accreditation council didn't immediately say if it would followthe recommendations.http://news. / s/ap/20081202/ ap_on_he_ me/drowsy_ doctors

[Guest guest]

I am sure that it made you nervous. Legislation has got to put an end

to this sort of slave labor. It serves the interest of neither the

patient nor the doc. But hospitals are powerful lobbies.

>

> During my days of clinical nursing practice I often worked with many

a bleary-eyed young doctor who sometimes seemed not able to

concentrate on what he/she was up to. It made me quite nervous since

patient safety is, after all, a prime directive for all who deliver

health care.