33
US surgeons are killing themselves at an alarming rate. One decided to speak out
(www.theguardian.com)
The medical profession needs to do a total rework if it's training and work patterns / work ethic. From what I know, it is totally unhinged.
The training system was developed by William Halsted, a pioneering surgeon who worked at Johns Hopkins hospital in the late 19th and early 20th century. Halsted battled addiction throughout his career, even as he revolutionized surgery by developing new surgical techniques, advancing anesthesia and promoting infection control. He became hooked on cocaine in 1884 while conducting experiments with the drug. ...
“This man created a culture where you lived in the hospital,” says Michael Maddaus, a retired surgeon who developed a narcotics addiction while working as a professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota. “Part of the ethos of that is you don’t complain … You just do your work and shut up and have discipline to be strong and pretend you’re OK when everything’s not.” ...
In 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which oversees medical training in the US, ruled that trainees could work a maximum of 80 hours a week in clinical care. The first time that any national limit had been set on trainee work hours, it cut into the 100-hour-plus weeks that were often the norm for surgical trainees. ...