Have you ever been forced to stay up for twenty-four hours and do difficult tasks? This is what many doctors across the globe have to do daily. 24 Hour shifts are eight hours over the current allowed shift time. Sleep researchers have proven that loss of sleep can mess up memory and motor skills. Doctors should not be allowed to work twenty-four-hour shifts because it impairs their needed abilities, lowers the effectiveness of doctors work, and affects their own health.
First of all, doctors should not be allowed to work 24-hour shifts because their natural, crucial abilities are weakened. The lack of sleep that most doctors are getting has a very negative effect on their work. With more hours of work, doctors cannot do many natural everyday …show more content…
Humans require lots of energy to do important tasks; the way we receive this energy is through sleep. 24-hour shifts are not allowing doctors to get all their energy which causes them to make mistakes more frequently while at work. In the text, we see that “Patient safety became a major focus of US health care policy initiatives after the 1999 Institute of Medicine report suggested that up to 100,000 US patients die of medical errors or preventable adverse events each year.” (Corrigan, 1) Mistakes and mortality rates are rising rapidly, as well as, the hours that doctors are working. The loss of sleep in doctors devastating to patients in need because they cannot be guaranteed a mistake-free operation. Shanafelt from the Department of International Medicine states that “In this large national survey, approximately 9% of participating surgeons reported they had made a major medical error in the last 3 months.” Even if the mistake doesn’t affect the patient, the doctor still notices that they have done something wrong. All of these mistakes are making conditions worse for the already life threatened patient. Doctors should not be working 24-hour shifts because the effectiveness of their work is dropping very …show more content…
Doctors are supposed to be the perfect example of health, but with the little sleep that they are getting it can be very hard for them. Not getting the recommended amount of sleep is bad for everyone especially doctors who are constantly doing excruciating work. According to AHA Journals,“To define individually the time span of high or low blood pressures might be of interest. Because high office blood pressure is a risk of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity, a long time span of elevated ambulatory blood pressure might be considered potentially harmful.” (Anon,2). With their healths, low doctors are more likely to struggle with their job and find it hard to do things with perfection. Margaret Kay, a researcher for adult health, stated that “One study found that 44% of doctors have chronic health problems, and another reported that half of a group of 408 GPs in the United Kingdom had had a serious illness or an operation as an adult.” Average adults are finding it hard to maintain their health; Doctors are having an even harder time because of their 24-hour shift. Less sleep leads to sleep deprivation disorders, which can be very harmful to doctors. Not only is less sleep hurting the patients, it is hurting the hardworking doctors. Grown adults should get up to seven hours of sleep a night and with 24-hour shifts that are nearly impossible. Doctors should never be allowed to work 24-hour