Did you know that many of the emergency room doctors you see have been up for 24 straight hours?

Question:

It's true many ER doctors work full time day shifts at one place and then drive to another facility to pull the night shift and they may do this 2 or 3 days in a row with little or no sleep..This is more common in small rural hospitals. Does the thought of an exhausted DR. working on you or your loved one scare you?
Also did you know that the person driving that ambulance to pick you up and help save your life could also be at the end of a 24 or 36 hour shift with little or no sleep?

Just a little fact that I don't think most people know...Just wondered how you felt about it.(oh yeah there is that "adreneline rush" when we get when we work on bad patients...but that eventuallys burn out)

**Note: most of the time we find time to get in a cat nap of 15-45 min here and there but sometimes we don't...
P.S. I am in no way demeaning anyone in the health profession that works these shifts..When help is needed we all step up and work these long night shifts to help out.

Answers:
I'm an EMT and I've never worked a 24 hour shift in my life... that's just ridiculous... 24 and a half maybe, but I couldn't even fathom getting off on time.

Yeah, it seems kind of silly to outsiders but you really do get used to working for that long with out sleep and I've never had some one die on me just because I was tired. You do the same job at 23 hours and 55 minutes that you do when you walk into the station. You adapt.

That's why the European union is working hard to reduce working hours because more mistakes are made and productivity is low

Did you know that many of the emergency room doctors you see have been up for 24 straight hours?

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