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Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

nytimes.com

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Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#31

Post by AlexandrB »

woahAcademia wrote: post #26
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dedication to, empathy for the humans that would otherwise die is the more likely conclusion. Most people aren't solely motivated by greed. Many nurses have actually had their pay cut during this pandemic and have kept slaving away in garbage bags and cloth masks despite their wholesale mistreatment.

Yeah it's sad people feel pains. I'm also unhappy that those same people have used Regulatory capture to increase their wages at the expense of public health. Deregulate medical and there will be less burnout, but the pay will be cut in half.

Healthcare is already under-regulated. That's how shit like homeopathy keeps showing up on pharmacy shelves. I'd prefer to be treated by an actual doctor, not an alternative health practitioner posing as one thanks to deregulation.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#32

Post by [deleted] »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #19

For anyone reading this that may be a major donor or board member at a hospital: Proactively ensure that your staff, from the food court contractors, to top surgeons have comfortable pay, support, time off, insurance, and supplies or the ones you need won't be there when you need them the most for a variety of reasons.

[deleted]

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#33

Post by woahAcademia »

AlexandrB wrote: post #31
woahAcademia wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's sad people feel pains. I'm also unhappy that those same people have used Regulatory capture to increase their wages at the expense of public health. Deregulate medical and there will be less burnout, but the pay will be cut in half.

Healthcare is already under-regulated. That's how shit like homeopathy keeps showing up on pharmacy shelves. I'd prefer to be treated by an actual doctor, not an alternative health practitioner posing as one thanks to deregulation.

Alternative healthcare? Let me remind you of the opioid epidemic entirely caused by physicians.

To buy dandruff medicine you need to get approval from a Physician, a pharmacist, and pharmacy. Not to mention the actual product regulations.

We've had 140 years of regulation. It was to protect healthcare workers at our expense.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#34

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

woahAcademia wrote: post #22
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most roles aren't the kind making that money. A few making big money does not make up for what's happening to the rest. And travel roles are weird/tough in other ways too.

Physicians do.

I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think physicians are very much the minority of healthcare providers. I think it's one physician per many nurse, CNA, PT, OT, ST, etc. Specifically because docs are so expensive.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#35

Post by lotsofpulp »

AlexandrB wrote: post #9
tootahe45 wrote: post #6

Nobody is forcing them to work. My guess is that being massively overpaid for what they do makes it worth it for them, otherwise we would've seen mass walkouts.

It's a symptom of our time that everything gets reduced to an economic calculus. The concepts of sacrifice, passion, or duty seem like a distant memory. Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying it's doctors and nurses thinking this way. But a lot of posters on HN certainly are.

It’s just reality. If you want more people to sign up to change bedpans during a pandemic, then pay up.

The cause of stress among healthcare providers is economic, and so is the solution.

I would never advise my kids to go into a job where a part of your pay is being called a hero. That’s how you get taken advantage of.

This is not wartime. This is a result of MBAs in management running the organization so lean that there is no slack in the system. So you can go ahead and offer your passion, duty, and sacrifice, but someone above you is just going to see it as another place they can save money.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#36

Post by mikeyouse »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #10
Der_Einzige wrote: post #2

On the upside, traveling nurses are now routinely making 5-10K a week (and they usually get real PPE rather than be told to reuse stuff) That's far better money than most soldiers (or even FAANG engineers) make, and the risk of being shot or having to write crappy unit tests is far smaller. Source if you don't believe me: https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/24/health/covid-nurses-big-money... Lmao what's wrong downvoters? Do…

Most roles aren't the kind making that money. A few making big money does not make up for what's happening to the rest. And travel roles are weird/tough in other ways too.

I've got a nurse friend with significant autoimmune issues who can't quit her job because she needs the health insurance - she works in the ER of a rural hospital in the Midwest making ~$45k/year. She's absolutely inundated with Covid patients right now and is risking her life every minute that she spends there.

Some random traveling medical professionals making good money in no way absolves the rest of the country's apathy toward this scourge.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#37

Post by cycomanic »

woahAcademia wrote: post #26
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dedication to, empathy for the humans that would otherwise die is the more likely conclusion. Most people aren't solely motivated by greed. Many nurses have actually had their pay cut during this pandemic and have kept slaving away in garbage bags and cloth masks despite their wholesale mistreatment.

Yeah it's sad people feel pains. I'm also unhappy that those same people have used Regulatory capture to increase their wages at the expense of public health. Deregulate medical and there will be less burnout, but the pay will be cut in half.

Is that why the US healthcare system which has less regulations than most other western health systems is also significantly more expensive?

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#38

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

woahAcademia wrote: post #26
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dedication to, empathy for the humans that would otherwise die is the more likely conclusion. Most people aren't solely motivated by greed. Many nurses have actually had their pay cut during this pandemic and have kept slaving away in garbage bags and cloth masks despite their wholesale mistreatment.

Yeah it's sad people feel pains. I'm also unhappy that those same people have used Regulatory capture to increase their wages at the expense of public health. Deregulate medical and there will be less burnout, but the pay will be cut in half.

My friends in healthcare are barely making rent. Not everyone is making MD bucks.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#40

Post by alistairSH »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #14
chowells wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care how much someone other than me makes. I care that you're so insensitive that when you're told that medical professionals are burning out en mass you think money makes up for it. That's so incredibly lacking in both empathy (they're human beings) and utility (they're medical care providers) that I can't reconcile it with any good-faith viewpoint on the world. So I have to assume it's trolling and should n…

Money absolutely makes up for it. I used the soldier example because we as a society have decided that their PTSD and other burn-out is compensated by medical-care, and the money / benefits that the military pays you. One usually knows the serious risks of developing PTSD from being a soldier before entering. We do the same for Police Officers, and it's for these reasons that cops end up so well paid in many places.…

But with both the soldier and the doctor/nurse, there is an expected status quo for work vs compensation.

A soldier is aware that the US has been a state of low-level conflict, with sporadic bursts of intensity, since 9/11 (or before). Even in a state of peace, there are dangerous deployments (anecdotally, almost every retired Marine I know has some sort of permanent injury from training - most are of the annoying variety - surgically repaired knees - but some are worse).

A pandemic the likes of which we haven't seen for a century is a change in that status quo for medical providers. It also brings a level of work and stress that simply isn't sustainable, regardless of compensation. A human simply can't sustain 80 hour weeks, no matter how much we pay them. Nobody wants to be stressed out all day long because their patients are being even more moronic than normal (see also: South Dakota nurses who deal with COVID-deniers who are literally dying of COVID).

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