Maybe, and here’s a crazy idea, we shouldn’t gatekeep medical professionals behind a giant cost-of-entry barrier thereby creating artificial scarcity in a critical professional sector. Maybe if we gave more people the opportunity to be doctors we wouldn’t need people working 80 hour weeks. Pay is another huge issue to tackle; how can we reasonably expect people to go into a career knowing they will be stuck with exorbitant debt, intolerable working hours, and little recompense for their suffering?
“First-year residents earn $66,628 and seventh-year residents $84,376,”
That should be published as $/hr and being “on call” should also counts as hours.
I did that math one time on my 36hr shift solo covering the trauma/surgical ICU. It came out to less than minimum wage. And the current rate for residents for my program is less than $60k, which is higher than when I was a resident.
80 hours a week??? No way in hell anyone is working 80 hours a week and if you do you’re a fucking sucker.
I frequently lied about my hours in surgery residency to be under 80 because if you were over, you had to explain why you were over your duty hours and it somehow became more work.