It’s hard to believe we’re still reading such tentative editorials about the needs and human rights of doctors to get enough sleep (“Letting sleepy docs lie [down],” Editorial, Nov. 26). Interns are no different from other human beings in this regard.
There was a great deal of bloodshed, much of it in Chicago, in the fight for the basic right to the eight-hour workday.
Except in the crisis of war or disaster, every human being should have this right. We need enough time to sleep and attend to our personal needs.
I would agree that doctors need to learn how to do their best when there is a dire emergency and they have to work way overtime because there aren’t enough doctors there to rotate in. But this ought to be something done in brief boot-camp-type situations with adequate control and supervision–not as what amounts to a hazing ritual for interns.
I think this exploitation also provides a cheap labor supply to the hospitals.
