My ex was a casino dealer. They're required to take a 15 minute break every hour (so they work 45 minutes, then take a break) so that they don't make any mistakes counting money. My friend is a trucker. His company won't let him drive for more than 10 hours because it's a safety risk. If he goes over 10 hours, he's at risk for being fired. Yet no one blinks at 14 hour shifts with no lunch breaks for pharmacists checking medications for patients. In fact, people (like some in this thread) actually glorify working longer hours without breaks so that we can make ourselves look as cool and tough as the physicians. Yeah, OP is a "whiner" because he's concerned for patient safety based on actual evidence.
Pharmacists aren't doctors so we don't have the same continuity of care issues with patients the way a physician does (that is, the less you hand off patients, the better - this doesn't really apply to pharmacists). So the studies comparing long hours for physicians don't apply to pharmacists in the same way.
There's pretty solid evidence (from multiple studies) that cognitive function and concentration decline if you don't take regular breaks. The upper limit of concentration without breaks before a cognitive task begins to suffer is somewhere around 60-90 minutes. There is data showing that people make more mistakes on tasks when they're not given breaks - even after just 50 minutes of doing the same task. Furthermore, it's human nature to assume that you're the exception, so people don't really realize or won't admit that they have these limits.
Why do we ignore this sort of evidence and allow ourselves to be worked to the bone with unsafe conditions, and then talk it up like we're awesome tough guys because we're willing to work in conditions that put patient safety at risk? Our employers push it because it saves them money because they can hire fewer people. But why do we act like it's somehow a good thing for our profession - one which is supposed to be a crucial safeguard against errors?
And of course people will still make errors with shorter shifts - mistakes don't ONLY happen because of long hours. But if there's solid evidence that longer shifts without breaks increases errors, then wouldn't cutting back on shifts, or just giving more regular breaks, help reduce errors? Just because a measure wouldn't reduce the number of errors to zero doesn't mean it's not worth trying to reduce SOME of the errors? I guess just because physicians have to work ****ty hours, we should let ourselves do the same thing so that no one will think we're "whining" because we don't want to kill patients with errors. So sick of the glorifying this type of mentality. Absolutely asinine.
