Negative Effects of Medical Resident's Excessive Work Hours



Negative Effects of Medical Resident's Excessive Work Hours

Introduction

Hospitals and medical institutions have been an important facets, originating and rooting back from the colonial era. Hospitals have gradually evolved in both equipment and personnel, in fundamental, playing key roles for improving the wellbeing of people and taking care of those who are ill, injured or under severe pressures of end-of-life (EOL) circumstances.

One important constituent that make hospitals how they are today is the service package being provided by nurses, which make the most important functions in relation to patient care. Nursing profession and practitioners are amongst the most important and key stakeholders in guaranteeing success and failure for any healthcare institution that may exist otherwise. Therefore, in addition to theoretical and practical knowledge, a nurse must have a high self-esteem, a physical and mental balance, for enabling as a nurse to pursue their activity in an efficient and effective manner in daily practice to meet their most important mission, i.e, care for patients.

Traumatic events create anxiety and fatigue associated with other factors, and affect their family life and personal activities that can lead to certain behaviors and emotional responses, which may have implications for their ability to provide adequate health care with their particular emotional wellbeing and their private lives.

The activities of nurses are enhanced by the responsibility of the effectiveness of the results of different surgical procedures, the orders they receive from doctors and timely and effective responses that they have to give them, the quality and amount of equipment and specialized materials that have specific forecasts that they have to consider as well.

Excessive Resident's Hours Is Bad for Nurses

Long working hours of medical residents have the adverse effects on patients life, as it lead to placing the life at risk and also putting their own lives in danger. With respect to the previous researchers, it has been observed that most patients' deaths from myocardial infarction and pneumonia were associated with nurses' long working hours. This shows the direct negative effects of long working hours of residents on the patient's health. This is just one of the major consequences of long hours working in the medical field. However, despite of knowing the facts, these practices are often observed in different hospitals, which are not safe.

Long working hours of residents also affect physically, as this increase exhaustion, affects the cognitive vigilance and decrease the alertness. Besides the physical effects, it does have the mental effects as well, as medical staff are unable to socialize mainly because of their long shift hours, which in long term directly affects the mental capabilities.

According to the American journal of Critical care, when the medical resident works more than 12.5 hours, the probability of making mistakes doubles. These mistakes include providing wrong drugs to the patients, which is more as the symptoms of fatigue. Moreover, excessive working housr also lead to the danger of burn out. Nurses feel more stressed and overload with work when they ...