Should a Brain Surgeon be up at night with a baby doing night feeds ?

They could just as easily administer the wrong dose of a drug and kill someone though.

Exactly
As do many other people on all sorts of work situations. It's always surgeons who are said to be making life and death decisions. For a specific individual, maybe, but for a wider population they are actually insignificant in ensuring we stay alive.

Yes, and as much as nurses are skilled and professional, they don't have a scalpel and drills that are going to pierce through your skull, and possibly inflict undoable damage if they are a millimetre out of line. It's not really the same is it?

I’ve had brain surgery twice, so this is not a hypothetical scenario for me. I’m not in the UK, however. Survival rate for my first surgery was 80%. Survival rate for my second surgery was 20%. No, I would not have been comfortable with my neurosurgeon having consistent disturbed sleep. I understand that may not be fair. For me it was literally life and death. I needed top notch.

And yet…. and yet… plenty of nurses with life and death responsibilities for an entire section of patients, all at the same time and without the support of a highly skilled team who are there to monitor and respond to every observable change of the ONE patient who is their ONLY responsibility on that operating table, do that EVERY SINGLE DAY AND NIGHT for 12 hour stretches

That's not the issue what so ever. It's about enabling one parent to have space away from work to do night feeds and young baby care without the need to be then going to work to make critical decisions. This should not be seen as a negative for careers, but seen as a positive for their career in that they recognised that this time could impact on performance.

I wouldn't want a surgeon operating on me when they've had 4 or 5 hours sleep. I'm not a surgeon, but I know I don't function as well on 4 hours compared to 8 or 9.

Depends on how good a brain surgeon they are.

Obviously parents of small children should be banned from working!

they do shift work so they can be well rested.

But one night of sleep deprivation because you were working a night is not the same as being up every night with no catch up. These studies are fixed time of sleep deprivation and not intermittent as per baby care. Even over worked doctors have days off when they sleep all day to catch up. And most say that is exactly what they do. Then start back refreshed. We can all do an all night working and perform fine the next day. I did it Thursday night and performed fine Friday. But with a baby it is every night unless you get someone else. It's the cumulative and intermittent effects of wake then sleep then wake, that are the issue. These studies are not comparable to babies, as work scenarios are just not the same.

If the brain surgeon chose to have a baby, they're going to have to parent it, aren't they? That's how it works.

Absolutely not. They cannot take the risk and be liable for a patient suffering an adverse outcome.

However I can’t tell how to vote without knowing which party you are.

They need to be rested but that doesn't mean their partner does all the nights every night.
Splitting the nights is an option. Taking shifts so one person sleeps while the other is baby duty.
Surgeons are expected to be tired if it's due to work- doing insane shifts when training etc. But that's seen as fine!

I think a brain surgeon should have had the sense to consider this part of being a parent before having a child and made sure they could get enough rest without forcing the other parent to take on 100% of the job.

I’m interested in why you are asking.

No it would definitely not be acceptable to me if my child's surgeon or my surgeon or actually anyone's surgeon to be doing operations if they've only been having 3 - 4 hrs sleep per night for weeks on end!

Unless they are one of those rare creatures that can function 100% correctly on so little sleep!

Here's a study that says actually patient safety is not compromised https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-effects-of-sleep-deprivation-on-surgeons-and-their-patients-201509028221

I was surprised

I think they would surely have a Nanny or 3! It's the poor old Nurses, support staff like cleaners who have to work hard to keep awake during hard physical work. They won't be able to afford much help if any

I love the way you used upper case for Brain Surgeon as it gives Mitchell and Webb superiority vibes! What about a Rocket Scientist: should they get 8.5 hours?

Are you a brain surgeon wondering whether to extend your maternity leave OP?

My partner has a risky job and no way would I let him. It is far too risky impossible for him to do his job without decent sleep.

I presume a brain surgeon doesn't operate alone?

Come on. A neurosurgeon is going to have more than enough money to pay support staff like people to do night feeds if the mom is exhausted.

I'm actually looking for a brain surgeon, as I want to turn off my nonsense detector. If you could recommend one that would be great. I don't mind if they're a bit tired, but rather they didn't nod off when I talk to them.