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Most Doctors Work While Sick, Despite Knowing It's Bad For Patients
An anonymous reader writes: A new survey published in JAMA Pediatrics found that 95% of doctors believe patients are put at risk when doctors work while sick. Despite that, 83% of respondents said they had "come to work with symptoms like diarrhea, fever and respiratory complaints during the previous year." The researchers doing the survey dug into the reasons for this: first of all, given the heavy workload of most doctors, it's very difficult to find others who can take up the slack when one is recovering from an illness. Beyond that, the profession is pervaded by a culture of working through the discomfort and pain of minor maladies. According to a commentary on the research, hospital policies don't help matters — they often incentivize long hours and don't encourage ill workers to leave the premises.
"More than 95 percent believed that working while sick puts patients at risk, but 83 percent still said they had come to work with symptoms like diarrhea, fever and respiratory complaints during the previous year."
I think that 100% would believe that not seeing a doctor would put the patient at GREATER risk. Maybe in London (where Reuters is based) there are enough doctors working for the central government mandated health industry that sick doctors don't feel the pressure to come in. However, it looks like in Philadelphia (where the data was collected) there aren't enough doctors. I know that my medical doctor friends go to work sick, since the risks associated with someone catching a cold is much greater than the risks associated with not seeing a medical provider. In some places in rural New Mexico, you get to drive for 2+ hours to see a similar specialist. My urban Albuquerque isn't as bad, but things are still pretty backed up and doctors usually schedule months in advanced for routine things.
Maybe a little exaggerated, but not entirely. I work in technology, same employer for nearly 16 years, and we get PTO instead of vacation/sick time. Company policy is that you can take your PTO whenever you like for any reason (or no reason at all).
I've been dinged severely for "taking too much unplanned PTO" on performance reviews. In addition, my boss one year negatively called out a "lengthy unplanned absence", despite the fact that I was in the hospital after having a heart attack.
Pilots don't want to use checklists either
Nonsense... a good pilot WANTS to use a checklist, the cockpit tends to reach the site of a crash first...
Humans are not perfect, more than once I've missed something trying to do it from memory or seen someone else do it, including high time experienced pilots.
A good training program will weed out the "I've got it, I've got it" attitude... No, no you don't... use the checklist...
Modern aircraft are too complicated to have it all perfect in your head every time, 100% of the time, in any situation. You should know your checklists and you should practice with them, but you should still pull them out and use them.
Listening to an NPR piece on residency some months back sounded really pathetic. The pervasive attitude was that it made you a better doc, and since everyone else went through it then I have to too. Someone needs to get through that the emperor has no clothes and this is just stupid.
This is certainly true. Although they don't like to admit it, the medical field is full of a lot of "lore" that has never really been tested scientifically to produce better results. From the residency hazing to the whole "white-coat ceremony" weirdness, becoming a doctor still has some of the odd trappings of entering into a medieval cult or something.
The problem is that deviating from past tradition is seen as inherently risky for people who deal with "life and death," so whether it's changing training routines or questioning some standard clinical practice, it's really hard to change things... which is one of the reasons for the rise in so-called "evidence-based medicine" in recent decades. I know we all want to believe that medicine is scientifically rigorous, but there are often severe obstacles to achieving scientific rigor once a practice has caught on in the medical profession -- because refusing the "standard treatment" might be unethical, even if that treatment was adopted after uncontrolled non-randomized tests that had statistically questionable success.
I have great respect for doctors, who generally work hard and care greatly about their patients. But the profession and practice is severely broken and weighed down with bizarre (even mystical) baggage about how better doctors come from weird crap... like the hazing and long hours.
Actually,
I am a medical doctor, and work in a government owned hospital. That makes me kind of a civil servant. I get paid per month, not per patient/treatment.
I completely recognize my colleagues and myself in this report. One doesn't call in sick, unless one has 39,5C fever or isn't capable of driving the car to work.
Financial interest has nothing to with this, your remark reflects your utter ignorance for the matter and lacks any form of humour.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???