[throwaway20222]

One of my friends I grew up with was “that kid;” smartest in the community, funny, played a mean guitar. Everyone loved him. Top of class. Harvard. Harvard med. Top placement for residency. Something happened during that time and he killed himself. It was absolutely unexpected from all of his friends. Shocking to say the least. Apparently it turned out to be stress from work, his hours, his fear of failing. Who will ever know, but it has been many years and it still stings.

[billfruit]

Can't medical doctors have duty time limits like aircrews. Wouldn't that alleviate some of the overwork.

[rtaylorgarlock]

My wife's a doc, in residency, and also Swiss, so I find myself referencing this study [1] on residency hours in Swiss residency programs over years. Bottom line: there are limitations on hours/wk and consecutive shifts, but enforcement of that is a joke + nonexistant, especially among residents (note resident's interest in maintaining their resident status and remaining 'bureaucratically blessed'). [2] See the Albuquerque neurosurgery resident walkout for an interesting business case of the real value of surgeon residents and what might motivate them to cause a big kerfuffle in hopes of bringing about changes. [3] I'm mostly acquainted with attending physicians who don't mind the 60hr weeks when they don't have a choice, and residents who pick up the rest of the work that attendings financially benefit from. Surgery attendings seem to be a special sort of animal. It's just not as simple as limiting hours, unfortunately -_-

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3464122/ [2]: https://psnet.ahrq.gov/issue/public-opinion-resident-physici... [3]: https://thesheriffofsodium.com/2022/02/04/how-much-are-resid...

[nicomeemes]

There is such a restriction, at least for NY. It was prompted by a wealthy businessman (naturally): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby_Zion_Law

[SJC_Hacker]

Last I heard (this was early 2010s) at least it Texas, it was capped at 80 hours/week for residents. Seems like a lot but probably better than the 100+ they used to pull.

[cfu28]

In the US, there is a cap for residents: 80hrs per week, but averaged over a 4 week period so individual weeks can go over

[sambazi]

it's not like the whole profession has the same contract, but working hours in public healthcare should be regulated, i agree

[huytersd]

Can’t IT workers?

[gist]

> Apparently it turned out to be stress from work, his hours, his fear of failing. Who will ever know

You are saying that 'it turned out to be stress from work, his hours, his fear of failing' but then 'who will ever know'.

Also why does it matter that he was such an apparent (to stress) academic high achiever? That doesn't make you immune in any way to anxiety or making other life choices that could be detrimental to your health. Understand that you are adding color to your story but really the 'loved, funny, played a mean guitar' why does that matter?

Easy answer appears to be he was pushed by others (or himself) and went into a field that he was not (mentally) able to do. After all most Physicians are not killing themselves (high achievers who go to Harvard or a less impressive school). Literally the same thing could have happened to him if he went into any number of high pressure fields or had other mental issues.

[tomohawk]

It's not the pressure or hard work that breaks us, it's the frustration from not being able to control anything. It's the knowledge of knowing that if you had some amount of say in what was going on, things could improve for everyone. And knowing that people who are not impacted by this in the least have all of the power. So you can either quit what you love, or keep doing what you love in a psychologically unsafe, unhealthy, and toxic system.