Sleep Deprived Doctors
- Doctors working extra long shifts is a long-standing controversy in the USA.
- Residents have been known to work 36-hour shifts without sleep.
- Sleep deprivation causes impaired judgment and slow reaction times.
- Sleep deprived surgeons have made catastrophic mistakes during surgery.
- Traditional doctors worry about continuity of care.
- They also seem to have a God-complex and feel they are superior to other doctors.
- They believe that the natural laws of sleep deprivation don’t apply to themselves.
- The new paradigm for patient care should be one of teamwork.