The Dark Side of Doctoring
My wife is a medical resident and the issues described by this doctor are absolutely pervasive in residency.<p>The strange part is, the overwork also seems to be pervasive among the attending physicians who have been out of residency for decades. Not just the residents.<p>As a tech founder analyzing the system from the outside, I think this writer has nailed the core issue: &quot;... a doctor is just one of the many commodities in this complex industry. It’s no longer about the patient. It’s about the business of hospitals.&quot;<p>If doctors were viewed in their industry the way software engineers are viewed in ours -- as specialized skilled labor with <i>extreme</i> leverage and limited time -- then we would have well-supported, well-rested, and well-compensated doctors.<p>But as it stands, we have overworked and overtired doctors buried under a mountain of clerical work, who need to slot their patient in to 15-minute &quot;encounters&quot; in clinic to keep the profit machine running. Meanwhile, administrators, health insurance executives, and medical equipment CEOs work 9-to-5 and earn millions. It really boggles the mind and infuriates me, as a technologist.<p>p.s. Don&#x27;t listen to any of the comment threads here that say long hours are required to reduce patient handoffs. Yes, it&#x27;s true, patient handoffs cause some danger. But tired doctors make mistakes. Period. And, as this post indicates, a perpetually tired doctor burns out and either quits the profession or (worse) commits suicide, which is the <i>worst</i> possible outcome for the system.