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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

#151

Post by michaniskin »

dragontamer wrote: post #144
michaniskin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The army needs propaganda to recruit people because it's not just a job. Soldiers don't have the right to quit if they don't like the working conditions. But many people actually sign up (or re-up) for the money, to pay off student loans, etc. If more workers are needed to care for covid patients then the wages will rise, and more workers will switch from other jobs to perform this work. Training people to empty bedp…

> The army needs propaganda to recruit people because it's not just a job. Soldiers don't have the right to quit if they don't like the working conditions. But many people actually sign up (or re-up) for the money, to pay off student loans, etc. Look man, if you don't want me comparing nurses to the military, then don't bring it up in the first place ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25213289 ) > This is what th…

Sorry, perhaps I digressed. To get back to the point:

> If a nurse quits on their job, then their patients die.

This is obviously not true, people are not dropping like flies whenever a nurse in America takes a vacation or calls in sick.

Are you seriously claiming that there is a national shortage of people who can be trained to empty bedpans, setup IVs, draw blood, and take temperatures? At any price?

If wages go up, more labor will be available, and there is no shortage.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#152

Post by dragontamer »

michaniskin wrote: post #151
dragontamer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The army needs propaganda to recruit people because it's not just a job. Soldiers don't have the right to quit if they don't like the working conditions. But many people actually sign up (or re-up) for the money, to pay off student loans, etc. Look man, if you don't want me comparing nurses to the military, then don't bring it up in the first place ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25213289 ) > This is what th…

Sorry, perhaps I digressed. To get back to the point: > If a nurse quits on their job, then their patients die. This is obviously not true, people are not dropping like flies whenever a nurse in America takes a vacation or calls in sick. Are you seriously claiming that there is a national shortage of people who can be trained to empty bedpans, setup IVs, draw blood, and take temperatures? At any price? If wages go up…

> Are you seriously claiming that there is a national shortage of people who can be trained to empty bedpans, setup IVs, draw blood, and take temperatures? At any price?

Yes. Because COVID19 is happening right now.

Even if you had infinite money, there's no way you can train all of those people to take care of the COVID19 surge that is literally happening right now.

The effects of the pandemic are here and are already having obvious consequences.

---

COVID19's job is closer to shoving catheters into people while you put them under a ventilator, setting up IV drips, etc. etc. But yeah, its happening on a massive scale as we speak.

> This is obviously not true, people are not dropping like flies whenever a nurse in America takes a vacation or calls in sick.

Lets see how long those patients last if a nurse doesn't change out their bedpans or catheters, while refreshing their IV-drips while they're on a ventilator.

Plus the math for keeping track of vitals to determine how many corticosteroids to inject into someone to optimize their chances to live through it all.

-------

https://oklahoman.com/article/5677006/asymptomatic-health-ca...

I'm not sure if you realize how dire the situation is right now. Nurses who test positive for COVID19 are being kept on the job because there's literally too many patients and not enough nurses.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#153

Post by 908B64B197 »

fairity wrote: post #150
908B64B197 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making healthcare a scarce resource isn't empathic either.

True but besides the point. They want a more forthright expression of empathy. If you simply prefaced your comment with “I really feel for our frontline workers.” they’d upvote you instead.

so it would be better to say:

I really feel for our frontline workers. But for years they enabled the AMA to cap residency spots and created an artificial scarcity that drove prices of healthcare up.

Now they are whining that they are a scarce resource? And they, using the money they acquired by leveraging their scarcity, even bought a submarine piece of PR to buy sympathy from the public so that they don't try to figure out why exactly they are so scarce! But again, I really feel for our front-line workers. If only there was a way to have more of them yet budgeting the same amount for healthcare.

Yeah, that does sound better.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#154

Post by shuntress »

shalmanese wrote: post #131
bleepblorp wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The two package options are "Alternative Facts" and "Reality"

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#155

Post by watwut »

jtbayly wrote: post #136
jtbayly wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

People on HN tend to think that Pancer General teaches you about motivations of German WWII commanders. Or that 300 is actually history of Sparta.

I am not even joking here, those are literally apparently upvoted comments I seen.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#156

Post by dragontamer »

renewiltord wrote: post #111
jeffrallen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. But you are not scalable. You know what is? An entire society taking this thing seriously.

There are many like me. I'd wager in the tens of thousands willing and able. If we'd started in March, you'd have had us trained by now. If you start reservist wildfire training me now, I'll be ready by next season. Certification fetishism is ruining America's agility. Unsurprising. All societies switch from exploration to exploitation to preservation at some point until they are replaced by a new disruptor. It happe…

> If we'd started in March

In March, I was trying to convince my family that COVID19 even existed.

We did start in March. Discussing that COVID19 is real, that masks help, and that pooling health care resources was needed for the imminent future. Fortunately, my local area is doing good on stockpiling PPE, expanding hospital beds / resources and more.

The issue is that a good chunk of America decided that COVID19 was a fake virus that only afflicted China, no wait, only affected Europe... no wait... only affected liberal cities. There was no way for it to spread around the country.

Sad fact: its too late to change the nursing situation now. Your state is either ready for this, or it isn't. Too late to change things. You had since January to prepare (when China announced to the world the COVID19 issue), maybe March (when New York City announced to the country that COVID19 arrived on our shores).

What we can do is start the propaganda campaigns needed to get mass vaccinations ready.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#157

Post by renewiltord »

dragontamer wrote: post #156
renewiltord wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many like me. I'd wager in the tens of thousands willing and able. If we'd started in March, you'd have had us trained by now. If you start reservist wildfire training me now, I'll be ready by next season. Certification fetishism is ruining America's agility. Unsurprising. All societies switch from exploration to exploitation to preservation at some point until they are replaced by a new disruptor. It happe…

> If we'd started in March In March, I was trying to convince my family that COVID19 even existed. We did start in March. Discussing that COVID19 is real, that masks help, and that pooling health care resources was needed for the imminent future. Fortunately, my local area is doing good on stockpiling PPE, expanding hospital beds / resources and more. The issue is that a good chunk of America decided that COVID19 was…

We can still start. It's okay. Having a reservist force of emergency personnel isn't going to suck.

And if everyone had a secondary job they could get refreshed on, we'd reduce the disruptive shocks to our society that things like coal becoming worthless do.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#158

Post by htnsao »

dragontamer wrote: post #139
michaniskin wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You mean like in Team America? /jk

No seriously, how does it work?

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#159

Post by dragontamer »

htnsao wrote: post #158
dragontamer wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You mean like in Team America? /jk No seriously, how does it work?

https://work.chron.com/army-required-knowledge-e2-e3-promoti...

Various benchmarks: time-in-grade (ex: 6-months as an E1 makes you eligible for a promotion to E2). For E4, there are two paths: Corporal (Non-commissioned officer, a leadership role) or Specialist (non-leadership, but a more specialized set of skills).

More importantly: these promotion requirements are well regulated, checked-and-double-checked for consistency. Everyone in the ranks knows what to expect. Leadership knows when to promote. A sense of fairness exists, etc. etc.

Re: Doctors and Nurses Are Running on Empty

#160

Post by dragontamer »

michaniskin wrote: post #126
dragontamer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a shortage of labor because COVID19 grows exponentially, and there's no possible way we can grow our nursing / doctors labor pool exponentially in a few short months.

The type of work required to monitor covid patients can be done by semi-skilled workers for the most part. The army does this, it works.

Since this is similar to another reply you gave me, I'll just note that our discussion basically moved there:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25213955

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