why is it good for surgeons to work 65 hrs/ week?

[FeatheredHeart]

Can anyone explain why this is a good thing?

Well, the argument I've heard in favour is that only by working insane hours can junior docs clock up the necessary experience.

["So take longer", springs to mind, but I am a mere non-medic.]

I do wonder if it's just a macho, hero doc thing. hopefully, someone will be along to inform us more thoroughlly.

I have always wondered how they manage to work safely with such long hours. I have to say it does worry me if I'm in hospital.

Yes training has been reduced as a result. So your surgeon will now need to do less surgery to become a consultant.

McDreamy - why couldn't they just train for longer? (Genuinely want to know - didn't hear the argument for and against that option on the radio and am interested).

cheeryblossom - according to my surgical friends, they would be quite happy to train for longer but aren't being given tht option either - lots of short-term thinking from the NHS again.

Got an election leaflet from the Tories yesterday and they were saying one of their policies was to remove the bar to junior doctors working stupid hours 'because consultants want it' - I thought at the time that it was mildly insane to prevent people from being rested and not working crazy hours (how much are they actually learning if they're as tired as I would be on those hours?).

Madness.

Ah yes Cherryblossoms, I was having the same discussion with my registrar friend the other week. When I said, but surely this system works in rest of world, friend said, but they don't have the same all round experience that we do, so I said 'specialize more then' which friend insisted was not a good thing? and so round in circles the conversation went....
Personally I think rested Dr's who can stay awake to fix and perscribe things is a good thing, but seems those already in practice may take a little more time to change their minds (reminds me of my relationship to my old job, before I had kids and realised there is more to life than work!!) btw I'm off on hols now, so won't be around to defend myself/answer people for a week!

It's not just surgeons - most specialties need junior doctors to work more than the 48 hours they're supposed to go down to in August. They'll probably get derogation to work 52 hours for the next 2 years.

The surgeons are moaning because there's too many of them and as a result they get less operating experience at the moment - if their hours reduce they'll get even less. The long term objective should be to reduce the number of surgeons (we don't need as many these days) and increase the number of GPs - we need tons more of these.

But the Royal College of Surgeons doesn't like this answer....

The main problem at the moment is that there just aren't enough doctors of a senior enough level to cover the 24/7/365 days of work needed so there will be more instances of less qualified or senior doctors working at any particular time. This is particularly bad as the govt made a complete hash of the new recruitment stuff for medics so a lot of hospitals weren't able to fill vacancies anyway.

ooh chocolaterabbit I'd have to disagree with you on that one! Hospitals have had plenty of time to sort out alternative types of cover - hospital at night schemes etc. and the recruitment processes last year and this year have given a fantastic fill rate across the country.

The biggest hash I think that's been made recently is changing the laws on immigration - we need doctors from abroad and the knee jerk reaction to what happened in 2007 has meant there now aren't enough middle grades in the system - we can fill training posts with doctors from the UK - just - but service posts and LATs are left empty.