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Rest for the Weary?
Shorter Work Shifts Suggested for Physicians |
By Carla Garnett |
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Dr. Christopher Landrigan suggests physicians work fewer consecutive hours to improve patient safety. |
On call in the intensive care unit, Dr. Christopher Landrigan, a second-year resident at Children’s Hospital Boston, was getting a rare couple of hours of shut-eye in a nearby break room. Suddenly he was shaken awake by another intern. ICU had been calling
Landrigan. “They need you now!” his colleague told him. A 9-year-old with asthma needed to be intubated right away. As fellows and others looked on in amazement,
Landrigan jumped up groggily, ran across the hall and—instead of tending to his patient—began to brush his teeth!
The incident—not the first time he’d had no recollection
of an emergency call nor of the medical orders he later gave—would be recounted afterwards humorously
by friends. But it bothered Landrigan. It was, he said, a moment of epiphany. “What am I doing?” he remembered thinking to himself. “Is this really a rational way to be providing care? Am I the only one like this?”
more…
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