Modern residency training was basically built by a cocaine addicted surgeon who believed medicine should be your entire life.
That’s literally why residents are called residents. They practically lived in the hospital.
We can thank William Halsted for that. The man who created the modern residency model was addicted to cocaine and morphine himself. He believed the only way to produce excellent surgeons was total immersion in the hospital. Trainees were discouraged from resting, discouraged from having lives outside medicine, and even discouraged from getting married because it could distract them from work.
His philosophy was simple:
If you are not living and breathing medicine 24/7, you will never become a great doctor.
And somehow, that mindset became normalized.
Today, burnout is still worn like a badge of honor. Many doctors feel guilty for resting, guilty for setting boundaries, and guilty for asking for humane working hours.
Medicine is known for innovation, yet one of its oldest training models still struggles to become human friendly.
So here’s the uncomfortable question:
If chronic sleep deprivation impairs judgment, memory, empathy, and decision making, why do we still believe exhausted doctors produce the best patient outcomes?
If chronic sleep deprivation impairs judgment, memory, empathy, and decision making, why do we still believe exhausted doctors produce the best patient outcomes?
I think it’s so beautiful that Trader Joe’s refuses to bow to the self checkout. They said you WILL imagine a future with this stranger when you shop with us
This decreases access to healthcare for many MANY individuals, especially those who cannot travel, like rural populations. How is this making America healthier when it will obviously exacerbate conditions and worsen outcomes?
Can you imagine being this student then coming online to see your resident talking about you on twitter? I hated working with residents like you. This is the toxic culture we keep saying we need to get away from.
i really hate this culture we’ve created with the idea that people with a platform “HAVE to speak on all issues” bcos now influencers and celebrities just rush to share any infographic with no understanding or context, when really it would be better for them to just say nothing