The medical residency is pure bullshit

I think your anger is misplaced.

Congrats, yours is one of the least educated posts on here!

1. We have pretty darn good healthcare statistics. Unfortunately, we do have pretty poor lifestyle habits, which are not the fault of medical professionals.

2. When you graduated medical school, you have a strong foundation in KNOWLEDGE. Trust me when I say that you do not want a bunch of M4s out in the world practicing medicine as if they are licensed physicians. Some aspects of residency can seem archaic, but most of it is out of necessity. Do you have any idea how complicated medicine actually is? The problem is, most people, even those who THINK they know, can't conceive of it until they undergo the education and training.

You can't become a doctor simply by reading a textbook. And yes, 3rd and 4th years are to get students "clinical experience", but this pales in magnitude and quality to the 3-7 years of residency training they will receive beyond this.

I understand you're frustrated at the long time commitment. I was too. Perhaps these constraints are a good thing. I sure as hell wouldn't want a corner-cutter like you as my doctor.

Medicine is a difficult path for a reason, ace.

It isn't the government, it is the old guard of the profession itself. The mentality that "I went through it, so should you" remains strong.

There is a lot of awareness that the long hours of residency are not optimal for patients, but it will take a long time for changes to be made.

Bruce Wayne wrote:

There is a lot of awareness that the long hours of residency are not optimal for patients, but it will take a long time for changes to be made.

Actually, there are studies either published or in the works that have evaluated the efficacy of the reduced work week for residents (down to 80 hours) that has been in place for several years. The goal was to see if medical errors/deaths/etc were alleviated.

In fact, things have been WORSE, largely attributed to patient hand-offs between shifts (it used to be a resident could follow his patient for as long as necessary to see that a specific treatment/procedure was carried out correctly . . . but now after a specific period of time, you legally have to leave the hospital grounds or risk your program's accreditation).

nelson wrote:

2. When you graduated medical school

Should say "graduate" . . . I'm sure there are other typos too.

The healthcare industry has absolutely nothing to do with health.

Welcome to this realization.

True. I recall reading a similar article.

However, other authors have suggested that there are ways to address that that do require utter exhaustion of residents.

But I agree it is a complicated issue.

You could have saved me a lot of reading by just posting, "I'm not cut out to be an MD."

As for the evidence that the longs hours are non-optimal for patients, there is a lot of equal and opposite evidence that reducing residency hours is bad for patients because it leads to sign out errors. In other words, you want the doctor that admitted you and operated on you to treat your complication and not the "second shift guy" who is picking up your chart for the first time.

Sure there is plenty of bullshit scutwork that should be reduced, but in short you don't seem to be nearly as interested in medicine as your are in money an being called doctor. On second thought...you might be perfect for Rads or Derm.

And no, the government doesn't have much to do with it being this way.

"that do NOT"

You err. Your mistake is assuming that medical experience cannot be gained in any fashion other than a federally imposed residency requirement. The guy who said that it is all about established tradition is spot on. You are determined to believe that the status quo is correct and that whatever you did is the best way of doing things and you simply refuse to even consider any other possibility. For all your years of formal training you still lack the ability to think rationally about anything. You just repeat what someone else told you.

Besides...things are easy now. When my attendings were training, there was no such thing as the 80 hour (or 88 at my program) week.

Letsrun.com: Where those who can't go to criticize those who do.

Not to make this personal (but it will be out of necessity), but the OP's post is a perfect example of the way our society is becoming ruined (well, one of the ways). The "everyone is special and everyone is super-capable of everything and if they can't achieve it on merit they should still get it handed to them" mentality in our society sucks.

You realize why being a doctor is so "coveted", right? (Even though it's less and less these days because frustrated fatties like to blame the medical professionals for their poor health, rather than their sedentary lifestyle and McDonalds addiction). It's because IT'S FREAKING HARD TO BECOME ONE. They don't just let any old schmuck in.

The very fact that you're so wishy-washy on trying to become a doctor is a good sign that you're probably not going into it for good reasons in the first place. You'd be sorely disappointed when you spend a fortune and most of your best years in life slogging away in school and training to gain necessary and valuable skills, only to have some loser who makes idiotic threads on Letsrun stroll in and completely ignore your advice because he doesn't trust doctors because of some Mercola article he read.

Anyway, back to my original point: most people AREN'T cut out to handle the rigor that is medical training, let alone the intellectual capacity. It's pretty clear you're one of those non-achievers.

I love medical arrogance. It is absolutely hilarious. The rampant materialism necessary for a culture to think that spending 80+ hours working during a week is a virtue is also rather comical. It is an almost exact parallel to a culture that thinks taking steroids to achieve athletic success is a virtue. "I sold my soul to the company store..."

Spending 80+ hours is a necessity not a virtue. I am sure that you know all about residency, but you do realize that the system of residence that is in place makes healthcare possible in many places?

There are only so many attendings and so many residents. The residency program is akin to the apprentice program for carpentry. You can do the work, but you are checked on and guided through. You are made BETTER by people who know more than you.

Suck it up. Seriously.

Evidently you don't know how to read at all.

My complaint is not merely that long hours are bad for patients, it's that that the entire structure of the residency is bad for residents and for medicine in general. The arrangement is exploitive, and the government controls create a monopoly on medical knowledge. It confers to teaching hospitals the advantage of being the world's sole legally recognized purveyors of medical knowldge, and this hurts everyone. It does of course harm the resident both financially and in terms of his happiness.

As for your insipid, sophomoric remark that I am only intersted in money, I would tell you to your face to fuck off. You are correct that I am interested in money, but I also believe that life should be organized around work rather than people and recreation. 60-80 hours a week is my preference, not a sacrifice.

Do not sell your soul wrote:

I love medical arrogance. It is absolutely hilarious. The rampant materialism necessary for a culture to think that spending 80+ hours working during a week is a virtue is also rather comical. It is an almost exact parallel to a culture that thinks taking steroids to achieve athletic success is a virtue. "I sold my soul to the company store..."

Huh? No one is arguing it's a "virtue." Like another poster said, it's a necessity. Even newly minted MD's right out of residency still have plenty to learn. Hell, 60 year old attendings still have plenty to learn.

Medicine is a lifelong learning process, but some basic level of competency is required before being let loose upon the unwashed masses.

deterred wrote:

60-80 hours a week is my preference, not a sacrifice.

Uhhhhh..........then what was the point of your rant against the terrible hours of residency?

The government really doesn't have anything to do with the problems you are talking about. Blame the AMA and hospitals that take advantage of relatively residents.