Resident Hours

There are more groups calling for reducing the work hours of residents in hospitals. First-years can't go more than 16 hours straight but older residents can work up to 28 hours in a row. Somehow I remember doing a lot more than that but that is besides the point. Supposedly resident fatigue has led to many medical errors and thousands of deaths but I believe there is some murkiness to these studies. Anyway, the big issue is that house staff is just that - house staff. The residents taking care of the poor is all this country can afford. If you want to hire more docs than it would cost at least another $1.7 billion according to the article. Good luck in finding that. You would have to fire almost 10 hospital CEOs from this country. Talk about chaos!