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Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

nytimes.com

131–140 of 180 posts

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#131
post #42

Man, this thread really bringing out the worst of Hackernews and its so disappointing but unfortunately not surprising to see the complete lack of capacity for empathy from some of the other heavily downvoted commenters. Almost everyone who participates on this site is well educated and fortunate enough to understand that people have been putting their lives on the line for months on end to help people through this c…

> Man, this thread really bringing out the worst of Hackernews and its so disappointing but unfortunately not surprising to see the complete lack of capacity for empathy from some of the other heavily downvoted commenters. That's an improvement over the usual HN COVID-19 threads, where 'it's just a hoax-flu, bro, stop spreading fear' usually gets upvoted and posts pointing out the dangers of SARS-CoV-2--and of SARS-C…

> The most generous interpretation is that HN has a severe Dunning-Kruger problem. The more likely explanation is that HN is host to a lot of people who are completely incapable of empathy and are unable to protect themselves from disinformation in areas outside of their own expertise.

It's one of the weird quirks of living in our modern hyper partisan environment that how much you believe political correctness is a problem on college campuses is correlated with what you think the IFR of an infectious disease is.

Beliefs come as a package now, independent of the evidence of each individual portion of the package.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nursing is not that complex. The bulk of the work can be offloaded on semi-skilled labor with on the job training. This is what the army does, it works fine. This is not rocket science here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_Unite... Yes. It is easy to solve problems with a budget of $700,000,000,000 a year. With enough money, you can develop training programs to make total dumbasses perform skilled work. But unless you plan on spending $7 trillion over the next 10 years on improving the healthcare system of this country, I don't think your comparisons to the military are very apt.

I think US healthcare spending dwarfs the defense budget by an order of magnitude. Not sure what point you're trying to make there.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#133
post #106

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.

There are no "floodgates" to open. FYI if you're an RN, you can get an EB-2 I-140 approved without any sponsorship, under the National Interest Waiver. They're considered to be in perpetual shortage.

The fact that people still aren't flooding in should tell you something.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#134

Why are degree requirements so high for nurses? What's with this artificially imposed supply shortage?

Did you just completely skip every biology course throughout high school and college? The human body is fucking complex. Staggeringly, mind-bogglingly so. And that's just our bodies. Add in just one component of nursing, like medication. We don't even know how most of the drugs we take work - called 'mechanism of action'. We don't know. We just know the shit does work. Now think about everything that can go wrong wit…

I know a couple of RNs well and went to a school where approximately half of the students were going for nursing.

What you’re describing is what doctors deal with, not nurses. My grandpa was just in the hospital and ornery due to not having any nicotine in him, but the nurses sure as hell couldn’t give him a patch without a doctor’s order, nor should they be able to.

Nurses know some anatomy, major no-nos, and how to do things like place a catheter, an IV, etc. Don’t get me wrong, they’re absolutely essential, but I’ve regularly been amazed at the lack of medical knowledge at least some RNs have.

My sister is one, and she’s coming home to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. My dad has lupus and finished cancer treatment this year. She thinks it’s ok as long as none of the patients she sees today have symptoms of COVID. The term incubation period means nothing to her, and that’s just one example.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#135

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…

>or having to write crappy unit tests is far smaller.

don't know about you, but I'd much rather write crappy unit tests than be exposed to infectious patients 8 hours a day.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#136

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And with 2020 shaking up to be one of the "worst years" in history, it is important to remember what we can truly be thankful for. Tomorrow, give a moment to thank the hard working nurses and doctors who have done what they can to save as many lives as possible in this year. That's what Thanksgiving is all about: even in the worst of times, we need to give thanks to the people who made this…

>with 2020 shaking up to be one of the "worst years" in history... Really? No. Not even one of the worst in living memory.

Those downvoting me really need to read more history.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#137
post #42

Man, this thread really bringing out the worst of Hackernews and its so disappointing but unfortunately not surprising to see the complete lack of capacity for empathy from some of the other heavily downvoted commenters. Almost everyone who participates on this site is well educated and fortunate enough to understand that people have been putting their lives on the line for months on end to help people through this c…

> Man, this thread really bringing out the worst of Hackernews and its so disappointing but unfortunately not surprising to see the complete lack of capacity for empathy from some of the other heavily downvoted commenters. That's an improvement over the usual HN COVID-19 threads, where 'it's just a hoax-flu, bro, stop spreading fear' usually gets upvoted and posts pointing out the dangers of SARS-CoV-2--and of SARS-C…

>That's an improvement over the usual HN COVID-19 threads, where 'it's just a hoax-flu, bro, stop spreading fear' usually gets upvoted and posts pointing out the dangers of SARS-CoV-2--and of SARS-CoV-2 disinformation--are downvoted, flagged, or removed.

Is this something that's happening within the last few weeks, or a few months ago when the pandemic was just starting? I find the former extremely hard to believe.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#138
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Moving fast and breaking people is, horrifically, the status quo. Special interests in healthcare, enabled by heavy regulation, go great lengths to insulate doctors from the consequences of providing poor care and the rewards of providing excellent care. We all suffer as a result.

Your experience with healthcare might be different, but my own experience in the US has been this: I rarely see doctors that have later contacted me to see how the treatment they prescribed was working. Nearly every other service or product I purchase entreats me with a satisfaction survey at some point. I've asked myself: why don't doctors care about my outcome?

I have concluded that while I am the one with the sick body and paying money to fix myself, I am not the only customer. The regulatory agencies, credentialing schools, special interest groups, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare unions are too.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_Unite... Yes. It is easy to solve problems with a budget of $700,000,000,000 a year. With enough money, you can develop training programs to make total dumbasses perform skilled work. But unless you plan on spending $7 trillion over the next 10 years on improving the healthcare system of this country, I don't think your comparisons to the military are very apt.

I think US healthcare spending dwarfs the defense budget by an order of magnitude. Not sure what point you're trying to make there.

The US military is a system that converts high school students (of varying capabilities) into soldiers and officers.

1. You start with propaganda: movies and video games that show the military in a positive light, encouraging a number of impressionable kids to join the military. I'm not against propaganda btw, but I understand how it works: the modern military spends a lot of money on Call of Duty esports for example, Twitch.tv recruitment, etc. etc. The goal is to make a positive first impression, usually through an entertainment venue (sports, video games, or movies)

2. You continue with explicit ROTC programs: where the high schoolers (or college-kids) can get their first real taste of military culture.

3. At actual recruitment: there are standardized tests that sort students off of their capabilities: finding a job that matches their skillsets.

4. You have a training program ("Boot Camp") that gives these recruits the skills they need to start their job.

5. You have a clear and well-understood ladder, organized by rank and pay-grade. Though its somewhat complex to outsiders, those within the military fully understand what they need to do to grow as a soldier (or officer). There's no ambiguity for what's needed to grow from E1 to E2 or from Lieutenant to Major. There's a literal army of bean-counters who are also double-checking and triple-checking the results to make sure things are going as planned across divisions.

6. Post-military life is also considered: the GI Bill ensures that college-life is guaranteed for soldiers, to be ready to be retrained after their military career. As such, military life can be temporary (4 years or 8 year stints), or permanent (a full 30+ year career). Both lives are encouraged and well supported by the structure. A number of Federal jobs (and state-jobs) even provide explicit bonuses to veterans, to help the soldier transition into post-military life.

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That's how you recruit, and train soldiers in the military. If your point is that the military has an awesome ability to recruit and train personnel, I fully agree with you.

But don't diminish the amount of thought, and resources, that have been poured into the military structure. From pre-recruitment propaganda, to recruitment programs, to continuing education (and the entire promotion structure), the military requires a LOT of money and manpower to support.

If you want to deploy such a "bootcamp" for nurses and doctors, I think I'm in agreement with you. I just want to be clear that such a "Bootcamp" will be extremely expensive, no matter how I look at it. Even if you cut out propaganda, and a bunch of excess spending stuff (military bands and other "morale builders"), the core of the military recruitment / training / post-training structure is very expensive.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#140

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And with 2020 shaking up to be one of the "worst years" in history, it is important to remember what we can truly be thankful for. Tomorrow, give a moment to thank the hard working nurses and doctors who have done what they can to save as many lives as possible in this year. That's what Thanksgiving is all about: even in the worst of times, we need to give thanks to the people who made this…

>with 2020 shaking up to be one of the "worst years" in history... Really? No. Not even one of the worst in living memory.

Right? I'm thinking ww2/ww1/spanish flu must be much worse? Wikipedia says covid-19 killed around 1.4M so far, but the spanish flu killed between 17-11 million.
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