How good is a doctor at the end of a 28-hour shift? (2017) | Hacker News Reader

How good is a doctor at the end of a 28-hour shift? (2017)

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5 pointslolinder4 comments

I'm not in the healthcare industry, so this is just a guess, but I think the biggest issue that causes some medical experts to want to retain long shifts is that the patient handoff between doctors for different shifts is handled so badly that they want to avoid it as much as humanly possible. It's sort of crazy, but they might genuinely think that tired doctors will do a better job than a rested doctor that doesn't have all of the patient details in their head.

I imagine that software for patient records sucks. Doctors can't easily read each others notes. Doctors don't have time to sit and discuss the patients too much to transfer knowledge. So a lot of knowledge about a patient's care vanishes every time a shift changes and a new doctor comes into the hospital.

I'm just wondering how can this handoff be improved?

I don’t think it has anything to do with handovers. I don’t think you’ll find many doctors that are avoiding going home because they don’t want to do a handover. I think you over estimate how much they actually care. Health care people are not massively empathetic hero’s who are willing to sacrifice their personal lives for the sake of saving the lives of strangers. They may have started out like that - but no… healthcare is literally a job, and at the end of the shift we all just want to go home and not think about anything to do with work.

It’s to do with the following things: 1. Lack of trained staff to take over 2. Lack of money to pay trained staff to take over.

I work in healthcare. I often get held hostage to shifts because there is no one qualified to take over at the end of my shift.

Other painful truths about healthcare workers: we aim to save all lives because the paperwork involved with a death is the worst task ever. Avoid paperwork at all costs.

You're in healthcare, and I'm not, so odds are that you're closer to correct than me.

But what are the historical roots of these long doctor shifts? The same healthcare economics weren't in place when this practice was instituted. Why was this practice put in place way back when?

I am not sure what the historical reasons for it is if I’m entirely honest.

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