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Rest for the Weary?
Shorter Work Shifts Suggested for Physicians |
| By Carla Garnett |
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Dr. Christopher Landrigan suggests physicians work fewer consecutive hours to improve patient safety. |
On call in the intensive care unit, Dr. Christopher Landrigan, a second-year resident at Children's Hospital Boston, was getting a rare couple of hours of shut-eye in a nearby break room. Suddenly he was shaken awake by another intern. ICU had been calling
Landrigan. "They need you now!" his colleague told him. A 9-year-old with asthma needed to be intubated right away. As fellows and others looked on in amazement,
Landrigan jumped up groggily, ran across the hall and-instead of tending to his patient-began to brush his teeth!
The incident-not the first time he'd had no recollection
of an emergency call nor of the medical orders he later gave-would be recounted afterwards humorously
by friends. But it bothered Landrigan. It was, he said, a moment of epiphany. "What am I doing?" he remembered thinking to himself. "Is this really a rational way to be providing care? Am I the only one like this?"
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