Good program on NBC right now on doctor life

BU Medical Sciences
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Is it over? Is the second half of this show just about the jewelry thing? I just turned it on a few minutes ago.
 
Geekchick921 said:
I missed it. 🙁

I was hoping for a preview of what will probably be the worst year of my life.
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lol ditto. worst year and best year hopefully. it'll give us a taste of what we really have to do for our chosen careers.
 
Aw, I'm sad I missed it. Anyone feel like recapping what was on the show?
 
The program was titled Heroes of Children's Hospital and was on Dateline. It might be up at dateline.msnbc.com at some point.
 
Just sort of following a day in the life of a new resident. I think they did a piece on some peds residents, surgery, and maybe EM? Talking about their lives, hours they work, motivation, etc. Was a decent job, they kind of talked about the "old school" idea of residency being dead. As far as like trying to make you cry and such to now being more mentoring etc.
 
Cybii said:
Aw, I'm sad I missed it. Anyone feel like recapping what was on the show?
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showed the struggle that interns must learn to deal with as they learn how to handle the responsibilities that come with being a physician as well as having to balance life and work whilst being sleep deprived.
 
For those who missed the first airing, the show will replay at 12am central time.
 
7starmantis said:
Just sort of following a day in the life of a new resident. I think they did a piece on some peds residents, surgery, and maybe EM? Talking about their lives, hours they work, motivation, etc. Was a decent job, they kind of talked about the "old school" idea of residency being dead. As far as like trying to make you cry and such to now being more mentoring etc.
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How thoughtful of them! although I feel like there will be more days than one where I will need to cry it all out just to flush it out of my system. All the pent-up negative energy is no good.

jckut10 said:
Here's the transcript, and even better:

This aired on Dateline NBC on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010. The full video will be online later this week.
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Awesome. I was definitely on facebook when this all went down.
 
Bumping this thread because the full episode is now up at the link posted above. A good look into the future for those of us lucky enough to get there some day.
 
This was a very good program, really enjoyed it.
 
What purpose is a 30 hour shift with no sleep supposed to serve? See how badly you can hurt a patient when you start falling asleep?
 
Tutmos said:
What purpose is a 30 hour shift with no sleep supposed to serve? See how badly you can hurt a patient when you start falling asleep?
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I really don't understand this either. Even 24 hours is pushing it, IMO. Am I the only one who wouldn't mind an extra year of residency if it meant that these ridiculous shifts could be shortened?
 
TheMan21 said:
I really don't understand this either. Even 24 hours is pushing it, IMO. Am I the only one who wouldn't mind an extra year of residency if it meant that these ridiculous shifts could be shortened?
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It sounds brutal, but I guess that's how the system works. Thank goodness at least we have the 80-hour work week limit.
 
Tutmos said:
What purpose is a 30 hour shift with no sleep supposed to serve? See how badly you can hurt a patient when you start falling asleep?
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More time spent at the hospital on call, the less call you and your team of residents have to take, the less interrupted days you have.

More time spent in the hospital, more you learn, faster you end residency, faster you begin having a real life making real money. (I know I don't want to be in residency till the age of 36+++).

There are some new recommendations that might be adopted in a few months that will give you a "5 hour nap" during your 30 hour shift, unfortunately, that means probably 2 people will have to be on call or someone has to come in to cover you. (ie. you may have to come in every other day at night to cover your fellow resident from 10pm-3am while they "nap", then you come back to work at 6am to start your normal shift)

As someone mentioned aboved, not until a few years ago, there was no "80 hour limit" although if you speak to most residents, that is still broken.
 
I don't know what it is about becoming a physician. You have to jump through so many hoops, but there doesn't seem to be much of a reward. Watching this gave me the same impression I got from Doctor's Diaries. It seems that people who become doctors are "beaten down" during the whole process. The person who does well in school and has a lot of ambition, becomes a person who has to drink an energy drink just to get through the day and wonders when it will be over. If ask them if it is worth it, they reply "yes", but you can sort of see some doubt in their response.

I may be exaggerating a bit since I just found out Katie Couric makes 15 mil/year...
 
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mangareader said:
I don't know what it is about becoming a physician. You have to jump through so many hoops, but there doesn't seem to be much of a reward.
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You do get about the greatest job security possible. But you're right, its a tough process.
 
If you can get 2-4 hours of actual sleep in the middle of the 30 hour shift I don't think it's a big deal at all. I just know a continuous 30 hours without any sleep would cause errors and sloppy mistakes with many many people and unless the attending is going to follow you around correcting every petty mistake it doesn't seem very well thought out.

ChiDO said:
More time spent at the hospital on call, the less call you and your team of residents have to take, the less interrupted days you have.

More time spent in the hospital, more you learn, faster you end residency, faster you begin having a real life making real money. (I know I don't want to be in residency till the age of 36+++).

There are some new recommendations that might be adopted in a few months that will give you a "5 hour nap" during your 30 hour shift, unfortunately, that means probably 2 people will have to be on call or someone has to come in to cover you. (ie. you may have to come in every other day at night to cover your fellow resident from 10pm-3am while they "nap", then you come back to work at 6am to start your normal shift)

As someone mentioned aboved, not until a few years ago, there was no "80 hour limit" although if you speak to most residents, that is still broken.
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ChiDO said:
More time spent in the hospital, more you learn...
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I think that's true up to a certain point, but by hour 20, I'm sure learning becomes very difficult and inefficient. By hour 30, I don't know how they can even be awake. I know it's tradition to work residents to death, but why keep doing things the same way when safer, more efficient methods must surely exist?

If one extra year would have to be added to residency, I don't see what the big deal would be.
 
TheMan21 said:
I think that's true up to a certain point, but by hour 20, I'm sure learning becomes very difficult and inefficient. By hour 30, I don't know how they can even be awake. I know it's tradition to work residents to death, but why keep doing things the same way when safer, more efficient methods must surely exist?

If one extra year would have to be added to residency, I don't see what the big deal would be.
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Actually, I think some studies show that there's been an increase in mistakes (due to handoff errors) after the 80hr work week was instituted when compared to the pre-80hr era.

It sounds hard to believe but a lot of residents have mentioned that they end up learning a lot on call (some have even said they learned more on call than during the normal day, but I don't know how true that is), when they're very busy and managing patients essentially by themselves. An extra year of residency may not seem like a big deal to you but I guarantee it's a big deal to others. I know I'd rather do the 30hr shifts than delay my earning potential/repayment of loans for even longer than I'd already need to.
 
Kaushik said:
Actually, I think some studies show that there's been an increase in mistakes (due to handoff errors) after the 80hr work week was instituted when compared to the pre-80hr era.

It sounds hard to believe but a lot of residents have mentioned that they end up learning a lot on call (some have even said they learned more on call than during the normal day, but I don't know how true that is), when they're very busy and managing patients essentially by themselves. An extra year of residency may not seem like a big deal to you but I guarantee it's a big deal to others. I know I'd rather do the 30hr shifts than delay my earning potential/repayment of loans for even longer than I'd already need to.
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I don't think most people would be that upset by it if they knew they could get a couple hours of shut-eye in a little private room in the middle of it. There's also an obvious memory consolidation benefit to getting a small nap in between, although I'm not sure if it's proven yet. I seem to recall cat naps being a big part of Edison's success, although I think his were shorter.
 
Tutmos said:
I don't think most people would be that upset by it if they knew they could get a couple hours of shut-eye in a little private room in the middle of it. There's also an obvious memory consolidation benefit to getting a small nap in between, although I'm not sure if it's proven yet. I seem to recall cat naps being a big part of Edison's success, although I think his were shorter.
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I disagree with you with regards to how many med students/residents would be upset if you extended the lengths of residencies. Like I said, nearly all the residents I've talked to said they're okay with what they have right now, though they still grumble about it, and that they'd rather not spend more years in training. I think I've also seen threads on SDN where the majority of the residents said they'd rather have these tough shifts (where they also learn a lot) rather than work normal hours and extend residency length. Correct me if I'm wrong there.

Medical training already takes a minimum of 7 years. I don't think you'll find too many people willing to extend it further. It causes their debt to increase further (due to interest), it delays an attending level income, etc. It seems easy for us to say now that we're willing to train for more years in exchange for a few hours of naptime, but I'm already (as a senior in college) starting to realize how important time and my youth is. I, for one, am not willing to spend even more years in training just so I feel a little bit more comfortable during residency.
 
Kaushik said:
I disagree with you with regards to how many med students/residents would be upset if you extended the lengths of residencies. Like I said, nearly all the residents I've talked to said they're okay with what they have right now, though they still grumble about it, and that they'd rather not spend more years in training. I think I've also seen threads on SDN where the majority of the residents said they'd rather have these tough shifts (where they also learn a lot) rather than work normal hours and extend residency length. Correct me if I'm wrong there.

Medical training already takes a minimum of 7 years. I don't think you'll find too many people willing to extend it further. It causes their debt to increase further (due to interest), it delays an attending level income, etc. It seems easy for us to say now that we're willing to train for more years in exchange for a few hours of naptime, but I'm already (as a senior in college) starting to realize how important time and my youth is. I, for one, am not willing to spend even more years in training just so I feel a little bit more comfortable during residency.
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I think you might have replied to the wrong post. I never said I agree with extending the duration of the residency program. I just said if there's a chance to get a couple hours of sleep at hour 20 or something that people wouldn't mind. For all I know that's how it works right now. I seem to recall some people talking about being able to get a few winks in a lounge or something.
 
Omar Gooding said:
You do get about the greatest job security possible.
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Your services will always be in demand, but that doesn't mean your job is secure. A local group of 20+ oncologists had a great practice going, with their own imaging and radiotherapy equipment. One of the local hospital systems (with 25,000 employees) got jealous, and they prevented all of their physicians from referring to this practice. That starved their patient supply and was putting them right out of business, and then the hospital group came in and bought them out for much less than it was worth beforehand.
 
It reminds me of when my husband was in the infantry. "We are required to give you 4 hours of sleep per day... they do not have to be consecutive."

Long nights are possible. Tough, but possible. People have done it for years in the past... and I suspect that by the time I reach residency this will still be the case. I'm sure I'll hate it, but it won't be impossible, and it's not a deciding factor in my career choice. I can understand how it might be different for others.

The sleep thing aside, I really enjoyed this show. It offers a lot of information.
 
TheProwler said:
Your services will always be in demand, but that doesn't mean your job is secure. A local group of 20+ oncologists had a great practice going, with their own imaging and radiotherapy equipment. One of the local hospital systems (with 25,000 employees) got jealous, and they prevented all of their physicians from referring to this practice. That starved their patient supply and was putting them right out of business, and then the hospital group came in and bought them out for much less than it was worth beforehand.
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true, but name a job where you have more security than as a physician
 
Thanks for posting this, it was a good watch. 🙂
 
Omar Gooding said:
true, but name a job where you have more security than as a physician
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As the country struggles to come to terms with the fact that it has been spending money we don't have for decades and nobody will borrow us anymore and medicaid etc. shuts down you might see changes in the law etc. to allow for PA's and nurses to take over huge aspects of MD/DO scope items. You'll always be in demand but possibly for a much smaller dollar amount.
 
Can people get out of their f**** minds that 80-100 hour work weeks are a great way for residents to learn, that these crazy hours are but part of some natural process through which all good doctors go through?

England, for instance, doesn't use their doctors for cheap slave labor and I think their physicians are no worse than ours.
 
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