Would you feel safe letting a doctor, that has been working a long shift and is now sleep deprived, perform on you? Many first year doctors are required to work long shifts, which results in being sleep deprived. Being sleep deprived makes you not think straight, and first year doctors could easily hurt or kill a patient if their sleep deprived. ¨Fourth year medical students across the country are now bracing themselves for inhuman shifts that will require them, just after graduating medical school, to make life or death medical decisions and to drive home while sleep deprived for 28 hours longer.¨, says Elizabeth Pratt. First year doctors shouldn't have to work 24 hour shifts because it makes them sleep deprived, they could injure themselves, and it could be very dangerous and hurt patients at the hospital. First year doctors shouldn't have to work inhuman shifts because they get sleep …show more content…
A sleep deprived doctor can be unfocused and could easily not know what they’re doing with a patient. If this happens, it could leave a patient still injured and unhealthy or unsupervised. In the past, patients have died from lack of supervision and care. As CBS News observed, “The 1984 death of an 18-year-old college student in a New York hospital while under the care of medical residents working long hours put a national spotlight on the issue.”(CBS2) It has all been from the doctor being sleep deprived. Doctors could easily forget information about their patient, and they could also not be good at moving around. Sometimes doctors have to rush around especially if it is an emergency. If they don’t have the energy in them, it could lead to a patient dying.120 patients a day are having to be looked at, 75% could die and some do die because of the doctors fatigue. Doctors working these long shifts could affect the patients at the hospital, so why would anyone want that to
Think about it like this, if you were put in a place where care was low and based on the number of people are admitted wouldn’t you get stressed out. Now think about what stress does to the body. Terrible things right? Imagine stress on top of decaying of the mind and limbs from old age. This is a sure recipe for insuring that we stay in the hospital and on the operating table.
notoriously cut short even though patients get sick 24/7 and mom 's deliver babies 24/7!"
In 2011 The Joint Commission called attention to healthcare worker fatigue and the impact it was having on patient safety. They found a direct link between healthcare worker fatigue and adverse events. They recommended healthcare facilities assessed their policies to identify fatigue-related risks, such as off-shift hours and consecutive shift work, and review their staffing to address areas that may be contributing to nurse fatigue (Martin, 2015).
Rocognising and Responding Appropriately to Early Signs of Deterioration in Hospitalised Patients (NPSA, 2007) stemmed from the investigation as to why patient deterioration was not being acted on or recognized by healthcare workers. The exploration identified a number of failures centered on lack of proper observation and recordings of observations, and lack of proper communication between hospital staff members. The study uncovered concerns from staff members not observing patients at night, to undertrained staff left to interpret vital signs and perform work outside of their level of expertise. It also showed a pattern of little to no communication between medical colleagues ...
Imagine a nurse who has to go to work for 12 hours and how much energy he or she puts in? It feels like a never ending story and the character begins to exhaust his or her energy. As much as 12 hours may seem, the 12 hours spent in something one like to do would make it better. It may involve less sleep for someone who works 12 hours. Nurses in the past and today have been working 12 hour shifts or more, which shouldn’t be a big deal now than it actually seems. I think 12 hour shifts are a productive way for more nurses to connect with patients and complete their work effectively. Therefore, nurses should have the right to want to work for 12 hour shifts despite the negative outcomes.
It is important that people are in control of what happens to them while under the care of their doctor, especially if they're alert and aware. A provider cannot force treatment; if a patient is unconscious, the situation changes because competency and informed consent are not present.
The article "Causes and consequences of sleep deprivation in hospitalized patients" written by Stephanie Pilkington is exploring the causes and consequences of sleep deprivation in hospitalized patients. The author provides a brilliant summary of factors that affect the level of sleep experienced by patients in hospitals and the effects of sleep deprivation on the health and the wellbeing of these individuals. The article goes on to state that for sleep-deprived patients, there were bio-cognitive consequences for their health and recovery, with particular effects on immune functioning, inflammation, parasympathetic equilibrium, carbohydrate metabolism and cognitive performance.
...hological preparation. After a nurse is done working their regular shift being forced to work overtime can out them a greater right of medical mistake in part due to fatigue and tiredness consequently putting the patient at high risk of complications.
This takes a toll on the patients’ lives because it
Firstly, every year there are many deaths associated with medical errors. Sarah Loughran writes, “An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002…” (medicalnewstoday.com) and this was just in 2000, 2001, and 2002 with the numbers bouncing higher or lower each year; nevertheless, there seems to be no end in sight for errors in the medical field. There is a way to lower these numbers drastically. The way to do this is by leveling the doctor to nurse ratio in hospitals thereby eliminating the stress factors on most nurses whom often have several patients to attend by themselves but no help in doing so. While demand for nurses may be high, there also comes a breaking point for any human being, “…factors including the high acuity of patients, inadequate nurse to patient ratios, increased work demand, and decreased resources.” (American
The authors and scientists from a different study by the U.S National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health on long and short-term sleep deprivation state directly that “in certain jobs, people face sleep restriction. Some professions such as health care… require working at night. In such fields, the effect of acute total sleep deprivation (SD) on performance is crucial” (Alhola & Polo-Kantola, Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance). Depending on their schedule, nurses can often be susceptible to sleep deprivation and are no exception, especially if they are working long hours. The study performed research on how acute and chronic sleep deprivation can affect the brain and how it can slow down or worsen thought process and rationality throughout the day for working adults. The authors also explain that “motor function, rhythm, receptive and expressive speech, and memory ...deteriorated after one night of SD.” (Alhola and Polo-Kantola, Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance) Although everybody is affected by a lack of sleep differently, some might have the ability to handle it a lot better than others, but it is fair to say that no one can perform their jobs perfectly if their brains are being affected by sleep deprivation. This organization concludes this study by explaining that there is still much research that needs to be
When hospitals do not have enough staff to care for patients, nurses are required to work overtime and because of that, 50% of nurses quit their job (Martin). This is not healthy for nurses and not safe for patients because if nurses are constantly working overtime, they can become tired and dissatisfied with their job. Moreover, when nurses are dissatisfied with their job because of always working overtime, it lead nurses to quit their job which can become a problem for hospitals because it is hard to keep training new nurses all the time. This can cost money and effort. In addition, it will affect patients because it nurses are tired from working overtime, quality of care for patients can suffer. According to Sung-Heui Bae, author of “Nursing Overtime: Why, How Much, and Under What Working Conditions?”, When a nurse works for over 12 hours or more than 60 hours a week, nurses are more prone to making medical errors which can compromise a patient’s safety (Bae). Like what Fackelmann says, “Overworked nurse may not get to a patient quickly enough to catch a subtle sign of a potentially deadly complication”. This can be one of the reason of 20,000 death of patients each year because of overworked nurses
...ns. Patients should not be so medically ill that they are unable to make this decision. Patients should be fully conscious and understand the implications of their decision. Everything should be documented possibly even videotaped that way the doctor doesn’t lose their job, receive a lawsuit or worst jail!
Is the fatigued officer, pilot, fit for duty? New pilot fatigue rules went into effect January of 2014, limiting pilots to fly no more than eight or nine hours, depending on when their shift starts, and each week must have 30 consecutive hours of rest. No such rules exist governing nurses. There are only voluntary recommendations that nurses limit their work hours. Sleepiness and fatigue often coexist in the nursing profession. Even though fatigue can be associated with multiple causes this paper will focus on the impact of excessive workloads, rotating schedules and the number of hours per week nurses work contributes to nursing fatigue. The relationship of work schedules to nurse and patient safety will also be explored. Nurses, RNs, LPNs, CNAs and other health care workers who are fatigued could be placing both the patient and themselves at risk. This is substantiated by research that links fatigue to adverse events for patients and health problems for health system
Long working hours continue to be one of the largest health concerns in the world. Currently, the world population has become so busy due to the pressure from harsh economic conditions. People are therefore spending long working hours in the workplace, which is an aspect that has negative impact on their health conditions. Statistics from Working Condition Survey indicates that approximately 30% of workers residing in European Union believe that their health is at risk due to the hours they spent in the workplace (Gurung, 2010:16)