Wow, has it really been a month since I last posted?! It almost feels like I'm weaning myself off LJ, lol. I have started a couple blogs (that I haven't really posted much on either).
Here's my personal blog:
http://albchow.blogspot.com/ Here's my health collaboration blog with Alicia, Rui, Sarah, Shari, and Yoshi:
http://healix.blogspot.com/ Like I said, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue LJ much longer. It feels like a logical end for me soon here. I think I'll transition to my personal blog so you can find me there (if I ever muster the motivation to update regularly, lol).
The health collaboration blog, "Healix," is quite an ambitious move. Each of the contributors represent a different facet of health care (in order of the people above): genetic counseling, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health. I overlap between medicine and public health (and I could be said to "dabble" in genetic counseling, lol). The general format is at least 1 post per person per month on any health topic they feel like posting about, though preferably related to their own field(s).
Anyway, onto the real substance of this LJ post: descent into madness.
My parents were watching the news and they yelled at me to haul my butt over to watch this one clip. This poor resident was so tired after working however many ungodly hours that she swerved off the road and hit a cyclist. I'm not sure if the cyclist survive or not. Quite frankly I'm numbed to that article. While always unfortunate, it doesn't surprise me at all that a resident would be so tired as to get into a car accident.
The news clip said that being overly tired is like being drunk - I believe it. Is it right to require residents to work 80 hours a week? (I suppose it IS better now - there are actually limits now as opposed to "unlimited" hours.) Would you trust your resident physician's judgment as he/she finished the end of his/her 24-hour or 36-hour or 72-hour (or however many hours) shift? I wouldn't, I wouldn't even trust myself! 80 hours a week translates to 16 hours a day for 5 weekdays, or 11.43 hours a day for all 7 days of the week. So there are only 24 hours in a day, and 16 of them are spent in the hospital, that leaves 8 hours for everything else . . . where does sleeping, eating, showering, hanging out with friends, etc fit into all that? Wait - it doesn't.
I think they were considering charging the resident for manslaughter or something. That's ridiculous. It's not her fault that she's dead exhausted at the end of her shift! If she were to be convicted, then all residents are basically ticking time bombs!! I fully believe "the system" is inhumane. I know, who am I to rant as I myself signed up willingly and knowingly to enter such an out-moded system? There has to be a better way.
All my mom said to me was, "You see that? You have to be very careful!" Dear mother, being careful is nigh-impossible when you're that tired. -_-
I also came across this article on the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/health/09chen.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 It is as I fear. What kind of system transforms a nice well-meaning person into a pitiful shadow of his/her former self? That could be anyone, that could be the future me (granted I want nothing to do with surgery)! It frightens me. That many do survive the system and make it out the other end is no real consolation. It's a scary thing, and I hope times have changed a lot since when the author of that article was in residency from now.