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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

#101

Post by skim_milk »

michaniskin wrote: post #98

It's just a job. Nobody is being forced to go to work. If you don't like your job, or if you can't do your job, you can quit and get another job. This is America. As long as people are griping and complaining instead of quitting we know we're in good shape.

This is one part of the problem though, I know someone in the hospital staffing industry and they have 28,000 open positions in America for skilled nursing alone even with the huge pay increases. Just hope you don't get sick in the next year.

And besides, the job tree has stopped bearing its fruit because it is out of season and it's been picked dry already.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#102

Post by wooby »

AlexandrB wrote: post #46
woahAcademia wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The opioid epidemic was caused the the corrupting influence of money in the medical profession. And your solution is to remove the only countervailing force - regulation - and turn the whole thing over to money-driven incentives? I'm sure you're right, and without regulation doctors would be paid less. They'd make it up in direct sponsorships from pharmaceutical companies though.

Arguably, regulatory forces created the environment in which money could be used to so effectively manipulate doctors at the cost of patient outcomes. If doctors stood to lose business when they lost patients -- instead of fearing only for their license being revoked -- perhaps they'd be incentivized more to treat patients well than to engage in opioid schemes.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#103

Post by kristjansson »

michaniskin wrote: post #98

It's just a job. Nobody is being forced to go to work. If you don't like your job, or if you can't do your job, you can quit and get another job. This is America. As long as people are griping and complaining instead of quitting we know we're in good shape.

Sure, but the terminal point of that logic is _an exodus of healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic_. Seems like something to avoid?

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#104

Post by michaniskin »

skim_milk wrote: post #101
michaniskin wrote: post #98

It's just a job. Nobody is being forced to go to work. If you don't like your job, or if you can't do your job, you can quit and get another job. This is America. As long as people are griping and complaining instead of quitting we know we're in good shape.

This is one part of the problem though, I know someone in the hospital staffing industry and they have 28,000 open positions in America for skilled nursing alone even with the huge pay increases. Just hope you don't get sick in the next year. And besides, the job tree has stopped bearing its fruit because it is out of season and it's been picked dry already.

So prices will go up. That's how we get other people to voluntarily do things for us. I don't see a problem there.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#105

Post by michaniskin »

kristjansson wrote: post #103
michaniskin wrote: post #98

It's just a job. Nobody is being forced to go to work. If you don't like your job, or if you can't do your job, you can quit and get another job. This is America. As long as people are griping and complaining instead of quitting we know we're in good shape.

Sure, but the terminal point of that logic is _an exodus of healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic_. Seems like something to avoid?

Pay them more money. Simple.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#106

Post by op03 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #49

I've got a friend who's a nurse in a local hospital. She's in the OB ward but has a half dozen patients on her floor with Covid. She says at least half is on antianxiety meds (xanax); she just got a talking-to from her doc who refused to refill her prescription. Apparently, the first bottle is available for anyone with the connections, but after that they start talking about addiction and asking questions. They are o…

Immigration flood gates will be opened to solve this just as they did for Y2K.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#107

Post by pizza »

michaniskin wrote: post #98

It's just a job. Nobody is being forced to go to work. If you don't like your job, or if you can't do your job, you can quit and get another job. This is America. As long as people are griping and complaining instead of quitting we know we're in good shape.

Trying to come up with a charitable interpretation of this comment that doesn't just imply tossing nurses from one abusive and under-appreciative hospital system gig to the next. If that was the case the people who we would have the privilege of calling our healthcare services would all just leave. Market collapse, if you will. Not exactly long-term thinking in the middle of a worsening pandemic.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#108

Post by dragontamer »

michaniskin wrote: post #105
kristjansson wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the terminal point of that logic is _an exodus of healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic_. Seems like something to avoid?

Pay them more money. Simple.

How much money do I have to pay you to get a nursing degree, quit your current job, and start helping out the pandemic?

Serious question. Now that you have an idea of how much money that actually costs, do you understand why things don't scale the way you think they do?

Even then, it will take you years to get the skills needed to be a nurse (and in ~1 year, thanks to the vaccine, the surge in nurses won't be needed anymore). What needed to happen is that you needed to start training to be a nurse 2 years ago, if we wanted you helping a hospital today. And that's assuming you're inclined to learn biological sciences and actually pass nursing school on your first try.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#109

Post by earthtolazlo »

wooby wrote: post #89
DanBC wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regulatory capture Next time you need surgery give me a call. I don't have any relevant qualifications; I have no training; I don't have a professional registration; I don't have insurance; but yeah sure I can watch a few Youtube videos and give it a go.

If you have good Yelp reviews or if I could speak with happy patients I would consider taking you up on it. Seriously. I've received enough terrible medical and dental care from various "trained" and "registered" practitioners to value referrals much more than any credential or certification. If you yourself truly believe that a professional registration is satisfactory, then I trust you practice what you preach by n…

Uber for surgery! Move fast and break people. I swear HN is a self-parody sometimes.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#110

Post by acdha »

pb7 wrote: post #79
acdha wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a useful contribution: overwork is always a problem and especially important in healthcare where it’s not “our project launches late” but “someone died due to error or lack of attention”. It’s also misrepresenting the few who can travel with the much larger group who can’t take those gigs - especially important when you consider what life is like for anyone with kids right now. Put in HN terms, do your 80 ho…

Nurses get paid hourly in most(?) places including generous overtime. Most professions get frequently overworked with little extra for that increase. Do you feel just as bad publicly for those folks as you do for nurses?

As it happens I do but that's also irrelevant: you aren't required to sort the list of problems in descending order and ignore everything but the first one. In the context of a conversation about nurses, it doesn't add anything to start “what about!” tangents.
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