Junior surgeons can't even sew up wounds (pretty scarey)

The Straits Times ^ | 2/21/04

[Polybius]

P.S.

Teaching hospitals don't pay their attending physicians very much so they offer other benefits such as the resident slave labor to man the trenches at 3:00 AM. Public teaching hospitals are also where the great hordes of uninsured patients go for medical care so the residents are drowning under a wave of sick humanity.

If you want to avoid over-worked residents, avoid teaching hospitals and go to a private hospital..........but don't necessarily expect to have your doctor at your bedside at 3:00 AM.

Remember, medicine is not 9 to 5.

It's 24-7-365.

There are only a certain number of bodies to cover that number of hours.

[LibWhacker]

I have had residents tell me that they can't take call or see patients because they have been on duty for 36 hours.

My wife did her residency under the old system. I thought she'd be able to work fewer hours once she finished her fellowship but it hasn't worked out that. Between all her clinics, being on call, being on the wards, etc., she puts in just as many hours as she ever did. The wards are the worst, in part because of resident rights. I could never do what you guys do. I'd quit in a second flat before I'd put up with those hours.

[LibWhacker]

worked out like that

[B4Ranch]

"Then you eat your homework. :-)"

Did you use Chromic Gut, Vicryl, or Dexon. Prolene and Nylon ruin the texture of that good pork skin and it sure do anything for jerky.

[lainde]

I knew this would happen...It'll show it's effects here soon enough. Residents who only work 8 hour shifts have no idea how to follow a disease process or critical patient when they just get to "go home".

[lainde]

They aren't getting "judgement". It's important to know when and when NOT to operate. You can teach a taxi driver to suture. But he has to practice that skill and form a judgement about what solution is appropriate for a particular patient. Thaty comes after seeing hundreds of patients and complex disease processes that don't present as something you look up on the internet in Merck's online.

[Polybius]

Did you use Chromic Gut, Vicryl, or Dexon. Prolene and Nylon ruin the texture of that good pork skin and it sure do anything for jerky.

Well, you should really practice your suture removal technique prior to eating your homework.....even if you use absorbable sutures.

If you space your "lacerations" just right, you can rescue the pork skin for "Cracklin" or, as we of Cuban extraction call it, "Chicharrones". :-)

[B4Ranch]

Just use metal staples and let a professional staple remover remove them when you can't decide what product is best.

[B4Ranch]

Thank you Doctor. I'll send you your check as soon as I receive the bill.

.

.rotflmao, snicker, snicker, snicker.

I know there actually are patients that need a good slap upside the head. It would do much for their general health, also ease the Doctors pain.

[Polybius]

My wife did her residency under the old system. I thought she'd be able to work fewer hours once she finished her fellowship but it hasn't worked out .......I could never do what you guys do. I'd quit in a second flat before I'd put up with those hours.

With the changes in medicine, a lot of doctors are quitting. The females doctors in my community are bailing out into the "Mommy Track" at an alarming rate.

My 13 y/o daughter loves animals and wants to become a veterinarian. I see no reason to steer her into medicine. My 11 y/o son has expressed no future interests but I can't see encouraging him to go into medicine either.

It would be child abuse to put such notions into their heads.

It seemed so simple back in the old days......"Get a good education and become a doctor or a lawyer."

I truly don't know what to advise my kids in regards to a future career.

[LibWhacker]

It's like some abstract exercise in game theory: What is the best strategy to prepare for one's future 20 or 30 years from now when changes are taking place so quickly that any specific plans you make are almost sure to lead to a dead end? Lol, it was hard for me to decide what I wanted to do back when things were so easy! Now, even the brightest kids aren't going to have any basis for making a decision. IMO, it's a terrible situation, not only for them, but for the society as a whole.

Computers were a sure bet not too long ago. Now we have outsourcing.

A lot of this is driven by the bottom line. Perhaps the best bet is to try to prepare oneself to become a CEO somewhere -- or at least upper management -- since CEO's aren't likely to outsource their own jobs. But you'd better be in the top of your class at an Ivy league school or forget about it. And even then there won't be any guarantees.

[Prodigal Son]

My wife practiced her knots and sutures at home. A young doctor wanting to become a surgeon should be proactive in this sense, not wait for theatre time before he practices his knots. My wife would sit watching a movie and tie the knots till it was on a habitual level- muscle memory.