Sailors, surgeons, scheduling: the deadly consequences of fatigue

Physician
February 7, 2018

Sailors are now the latest profession, along with truck drivers and airline pilots, taking the dangers of fatigue and the need for balanced shift schedules seriously. When will medicine finally catch up?

Recently, Navy officials sat down in front of Congress and talked about tiredness. With a $171.5 billion annual budget and some of the most sophisticated military technologies in the world, it is increasingly looking like human …

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Sailors, surgeons, scheduling: the deadly consequences of fatigue

Better paid, better utilized physicians can transform the VA

Policy
November 2, 2017

It’s a tale of two health systems: the VA and Kaiser Permanente.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration (VA) is a mission-driven health organization, serving our nation’s veterans. A patient population of 8.9 million, led by David Shulkin, MD. An early leader in health technology adoption. The VA has faced serious issues; however: long patient wait times (deadly long in some cases) and high physician turnover rates.

Kaiser Permanente …

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Better paid, better utilized physicians can transform the VA

Doctors are dangerously tired, and health care leaders aren’t taking action

Physician
October 17, 2017

Do you want your surgeon to work back-to-back overnight 12-hour shifts and then perform brain surgery on you the next morning? There’s currently no regulation prohibiting this kind of dangerous scheduling in medicine.

Physicians are human. Like truck drivers or airline pilots, their fatigue can lead to dangerous consequences for those around them. A recent study showed that even mild sleep deprivation causes the same levels of impairment …

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Doctors are dangerously tired, and health care leaders aren’t taking action