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

[Mondaytuesdayhappydays]

Should a surgeon working full time, operating on patients each day be up with a baby at night doing 2/3 hourly feeds.

If they were operating in your child and had had only 3/4 hours sleep each night over the last fortnight would this be acceptable to you?

@ThatDaringEagle

You may consider some roles more worthy of protection than others but I'm not sure that is helpful.

FWIW the rules for flight time limitations in aviation originate many decades ago, due to the findings of investigations of accidents such as one at Singapore where 33 died multiple decades ago.

In that case it was concluded that the captain was so fatigued they didn't exercise, to borrow your phrase, "a fair degree of accuracy and precision"..and BTW and for info even today autopilots can't/don't do everything..

I do think everyone in a safety critical role should be protected from being overly fatigued, emphasis being on fatigued, not tired.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555716/#:~:text=The%20Committee's%20report%20recommended%20that,limit%20of%20900%20flying%20hours.

@Mondaytuesdayhappydays It's a very difficult situation. DIL definitely needs to prioritise sleep prior to operating, being a neurosurgeon is an extremely responsible job and I wouldn't want to operate on only a couple of hours sleep.
How old is baby? Could they consider moving baby into the nursery if 6 months old? Hopefully this would help the sleep.
It sounds like your Daughter is quite anxious and baby could be picking up on that and this could be contributing to the baby being unsettled. How is your daughter's mental health? Could she be suffering from some degree of post natal depression?
Also, what formula are they using? How are they making the formula? Is baby sick? There is so much more to this I feel than just being about the sleeping separately.

It's a bit unusual to seek opinions on this topic. Most people would agree that a neurosurgeon should be well-rested before performing planned surgeries. However, many neurosurgeries are emergency procedures—like those following car accidents or strokes—and can last up to 10 hours or more. From personal experience, these surgeons are often overworked regardless.

If you are talking about risk management, it’s much more dangerous for a sleep deprived parent to do the school run while tired - they could kill themselves, several kids in their own car and the same number of pedestrians, perhaps a mum with a toddler and baby in a pram.

A tired bus driver or train driver could kills dozens.

A surgeon could only kill one - the patient.

Plus all surgeons work in a team of other professionals - a driver of a car / train / bus is alone . So less potential for someone to spot their tiredness and intervene in time.

So perhaps the surgeon needs to make sure that the other parent is well rested instead, if they intend to drive.

This is what I was saying up-thread. Yes it's horrendous for a brain surgeon to be performing brain surgery while severely sleep deprived. But it's also horrendous for any sleep deprived person to be behind the wheel of a car. My husband used to have to pull over on the way to and from work to have a 2 min micro nap because he could feel himself falling asleep at the wheel. He could have killed himself or other people easily. IMO the problem is the lack of paternity leave available... regardless of career. NOBODY should be functioning on that little sleep and the risks are scarily high in LOTS of scenarios.

It's also horrendous for any sleep deprived person to be behind the wheel of a car

..and as the Selby rail crash showed can leave you open to legal sanction.

I worked in an occupation where you were meant to be protected from fatigue ( that does not mean you were protected from being tired, in the view of the regulators fatigued and tired were different things).

Driving home post work when tired was the norm but post Selby management attitudes changed a little.

If circumstances had conspired to make you extend your day well beyond the original plan and towards the extremes of the limits management did a bit of a CYA by offering to book (but not pay for!) a hotel room for you to rest in.before driving home..

Gosh yes. 10 people died in that didn't they, and it happened because the guy fell asleep at the wheel? Horrific.

One would assume that those with risky jobs would have the inate commonsense to get a good night's sleep before putting people at risk. If the brain surgeon has a partner he/she should do night feed b4 ops. Unless they are both brain surgeons!In which case they can afford a nanny!

Tell me you haven't read the thread, without actually saying that..............

The other parent isn't going on school runs so I don't know where that comes into it. She can have a nap when baby naps. I wouldn't want a surgeon operating on me if they were shit faced tired. The rest of the team rely on the surgeon to instruct them. Hopefully, ops DD is coping better now the op was given a lot of good advice.

The worst is yet to come with motherhood wait until their baby gets big and starts school. Their little one may have to deal with prejudice because her parents are women. My son was called a "monkey" by a 10 year old a couple of weeks ago and he posted the sounds. My son gave a good fight back and gave him the finger. I would also advise the DD to get their child into karate when they are old enough it brings a lot of confidence.

Maybe not, but then they should be paying for a night nanny, just as they would arrange for other things in their life to run smoothly so they can behave in a reasonable way with their partner and a professional way with their patients.

A qualified neurosurgeon is called that whether they are a consultant or not. They will be operating on brains.

Came here to say this! Apparently someone who has been working as a neurosurgeon for 10 years, isn't allowed to call themselves a neurosurgeon unless they're a consultant 😮