> You might ask, why can’t you work less? It’s not as easy as that. If I decide to work less, who is going to cover the hospital? If the hospital aren’t employing other doctors, we can’t allow patients to go uncovered. I accept the fact that I have a duty of care to be on call.
Ultimately, this is a situation in which doctors doing this is worse in the long run.
Burning yourself out to cover for understaffing means both worse life balance for you BUT ALSO worse patient care.
No one quantifies how many people die, or how many diagnoses are missed, or how many patients feel unheard and become disillusioned with going to doctors, because doctors are dead tired and mentally burnt out, because they're trying to do right by patients.
You have to force hospital admin and owners do THEIR JOB, which is (in part) to provide needed staff to run properly, by not letting them exploit or impart a hero complex onto a job.
Yes, it's one of those cases where compassion works against people - because it's a dirty, costly local fix that enables the structural problem to fester.
You don't want a system that requires "heroic effort" as a baseline. You want a system where "heroic effort" is reserved for heroic circumstances.
If doctors are running ragged and putting in unreasonable hours and burning out during a natural disaster or a worldwide pandemic, it's understandable. If doctors are running ragged and putting in unreasonable hours and burning out during "business as usual"? Something's rotten.
Run long enough like this, and you'll simply deplete the people who dared to care - and leave ones who never did, or learned not to.
ang_cire · · focus · HN ↗
Ultimately, this is a situation in which doctors doing this is worse in the long run.
Burning yourself out to cover for understaffing means both worse life balance for you BUT ALSO worse patient care.
No one quantifies how many people die, or how many diagnoses are missed, or how many patients feel unheard and become disillusioned with going to doctors, because doctors are dead tired and mentally burnt out, because they're trying to do right by patients.
You have to force hospital admin and owners do THEIR JOB, which is (in part) to provide needed staff to run properly, by not letting them exploit or impart a hero complex onto a job.
ACCount39 · · focus · HN ↗
You don't want a system that requires "heroic effort" as a baseline. You want a system where "heroic effort" is reserved for heroic circumstances.
If doctors are running ragged and putting in unreasonable hours and burning out during a natural disaster or a worldwide pandemic, it's understandable. If doctors are running ragged and putting in unreasonable hours and burning out during "business as usual"? Something's rotten.
Run long enough like this, and you'll simply deplete the people who dared to care - and leave ones who never did, or learned not to.
ang_cire · · focus · HN ↗