Rules changed in 2003, but until then medical residency programs routinely had doctors working 100+ hours a week or longer. In 2003 a cap of 80 hours a week was instituted along with a maximum of 24 hours in any given period, but programs found various loopholes around that cap which still had doctors working close to 100 hours a week. So further restrictions were placed so that over any 4 week period there's a hard cap of 320 hours, no exceptions.
At any rate, for most of the HN crowd who work a fairly routine IT or an office job, 80+ hours sustained for months and months might seem impossible, but join the military, work on a ship, work on a farm, work the oil fields, work in investment banking, work in a film crew which threatened to go on strike in 2021 for having 98 hour work weeks for months on end... and you find that while it's not common, it certainly happens in various fields.
Are residents and people working on ships actually making decisions for 100 hours a week? It's the cognitive load that I find difficult to believe about these numbers, not the
At one point I was also working crazy hours at a fast food shop. But that was only possible because I could "zone out" and just pour the customer's coffee and make sandwiches. Writing code for that long would have been impossible.
Obviously not every moment of every hour in a residents day is deep clinical thinking with high cognitive load, but we’re definitely not “zoning out” when making medical decisions. Patient statuses change very quickly and very often in the hospital, and every problem should be re-evaluated like it is a fresh concern. Decisions can be made quicker with more experience but you’re expected to be “on” all the time. Plus, lots of things contribute to cognitive load outside sheer medical decisions - social work, dispo issues, patient preferences, etc. Luckily my residency is closer to 60-70 hours a week but 100 is still common.
Remember - the 80 hour a week limit is not a max limit. It is the max hours per week AVERAGED OVER 4 weeks. You can easily work 100 hours this week if you do 60 the next.
> Are residents and people working on ships actually making decisions for 100 hours a week?
Residencies? Yeah. The guy who came up with the US' system for medical residency was high on cocaine pretty much constantly and expected everyone to perform at his level.
>. In 2003 a cap of 80 hours a week was instituted
Oh you sweet summer child, was instituted on paper
Here's how it actually works. "Mark down the hours you worked this week. Oh. And if it's over 80 of course we'll run into big problems for violating this rule and your residency will lose credentials which is bad for you.. also we'll know it was you"
People who work 90, 100, 110, 120 hours (gets hard north of 130), guess how many hours they put? 80 if they're feeling nice, 81 if they want to make a point. Even today.
At any rate, for most of the HN crowd who work a fairly routine IT or an office job, 80+ hours sustained for months and months might seem impossible, but join the military, work on a ship, work on a farm, work the oil fields, work in investment banking, work in a film crew which threatened to go on strike in 2021 for having 98 hour work weeks for months on end... and you find that while it's not common, it certainly happens in various fields.