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?

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.

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.

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.

they do shift work so they can be well rested.

Obviously parents of small children should be banned from working!

Depends on how good a brain surgeon they are.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

Surgeons don't operate every working day; they have days that are administrative, spent on consultations, follow ups etc. They also don't work 7 days a week. Would I want a surgeon to operate on 4 hours sleep? No. Would I expect them to plan their time so they have capacity on other nights to do some night wakings, because they have a day off, are on annual leave, Mat or Pat leave, or just not scheduled to operate the following day? Yes.

It makes me laugh so darkly that people think doctors in these jobs are getting a full eight hours every night, baby or not.

Possibly yes, then they'd be fired. I'd much rather have a surgeon who had had adequate sleep in all honesty.

lol.

And if the neurosurgeon IS the mum?

Yes, a brain surgeon with a baby will most likely need to be up during the night for a bit doing feeds. Any brain surgeon who falls into this category has the responsibility to proactively excuse themself from active duty doing brain surgery if and when they know or suspect that childcare interferes with their ability to do their job and might compromise the safety of their patients.

No their role is much more important.
The skill of a brain surgeon doesn't save a measurable significance number of lives compared to that of the skill of infection control nurses or timely drug administration or patient awareness by nurses.
Don't let the hype distort the facts. The most important factor in a hospital to the chances of you getting out alive is infection control. That's cleaners and nurses.

No, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm a million miles away from being a brain surgeon and I'd struggle on that little sleep.

I would expect a brain surgeon who was a parent to take an active role in parenting their child that took into account the special circumstances of their role. So doing night feeds when they were not operating the next day, taking on more of the parenting role in the evening or hiring someone to provide assistance. Not saying oh well I’m a brain surgeon I can’t possibly lift a finger overnight ever.

The only surgeon I know (although not a brain surgeon) is married to a train driver.

It's an impossible question to answer generally because in their house more lives are in the train drivers hands than the surgeons.

Whereas in another where the partner was in a safer role it would be different again

I'm not suggesting a nurses role is less than that of a surgeon at all. A brain surgeon will be doing invasive surgery on a very vulnerable organ. It isn't the same.

In a hospital, if every brain surgeon killed you but there was never a hospital aquired infection death, then that hospital would be a good hospital, except for those specifically going for brain surgery. Then not so good. The point is, healthcare is a combined effort and no aspect deserves some kind of prestige or devine awe above any other effort.

Out of curiosity...

What if they were a train driver? Or bus driver? Or school taxi driver? Or pharmacist? Or just driving a car? All those things have the potential to harm, maim or kill multiple ppl at once - unlike a surgeon who can harm only one at a time whilst operating.

Why is a brain surgeon so special?