Every July, a new class of medical students, residents and fellows walk into hospitals across America for the first time. And every July, an old debate quietly returns: How long should a doctor stay?
KJZZ’s medical commentator Dr. Joseph Sirven explains why a recent television drama brought that question back with new urgency.
Transcript
DR. JOSEPH SIRVEN: I was flipping through streaming shows recently when The Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” suddenly filled the room.
And immediately, I thought about medicine.
During my training, leaving when your shift ended was quietly punished. Staying late signaled commitment. Leaving on time could cost you grades, recommendations — even your reputation. So we stayed. All of us stayed.
Officially, medicine has been debating work hours since 2003, when policy regulators first capped resident workweeks at 80 hours. The reform was rooted partly in the malpractice death of 18-year-old patient decades earlier, a case that forced medicine to confront what exhaustion can do inside a hospital.
New restrictions followed in 2011. Then came more studies. More backlash. More debate.
And still no consensus.
The TV drama “The Pitt” has brought the argument into living rooms. In one episode, a medical student calmly leaves after her shift despite pressure to stay. Was she irresponsible, or was she the only one thinking clearly?
Here’s why this matters:
Someday, you may be a patient laying in a hospital bed near the end of someone’s very long shift. And the uncomfortable question becomes: Do you want your doctor to stay?
Part of me still admires the physician who refuses to leave.
But I also remember the fog, the slowed thinking, the missed details, the emotional numbness that can look, from the outside, like composure.
The reforms that limited marathon shifts were about making medicine safer. And more honest.
Because here’s the twist none of us expected: The most dangerous doctor in the hospital may not be the one who leaves.
It may be the one too exhausted, too proud or too afraid to admit they should.
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