Aw, come on! Pilots all hit the bar every time they land in a new city, don't they?
Not if they're going to fly again within 48h. Again, this is more for other people's peace of mind more than for the pilot's personal good, or really any practical considerations. Yes, we all know that a typical pilot could fly just fine one day after having one beer. But if shit goes awry and many people's lives are at stake, the airline company's continued ability to stay in business depends on there not even being the slightest question that the pilot was utterly substance free.
Anyone who has any gripes about drug intolerance at their (or any) place of work really ought to read the Wikipedia entry on Risk Management. Bottom line: if an institution asks people to surrender their personal safety to this institution's mercy, the institution owes it to the public (from whence their clientele comes) to lay to rest any possible suspicion that its workers take unnecessary risks with clients' personal safety. Otherwise the institution loses public trust, loses clientele, and is forced to fold.
I think people need to face the fact that when you're being paid by someone to do a job, the unwritten agreement is that your employer's best interests come before your own, period the end. The employer will, therefore, ban employees from doing anything that put its best interests in jeopardy. I'm sorry if this sounds cold, corporate, or anti-individualist. I don't mean to give the impression The Man has gotten me down, or I've drank the corporate Kool Aid. I only mean to explain why a policy that seems (and indeed is) unfair to the individual worker actually makes a lot of sense for the person holding the purse strings, and is not likely to change.
Very good points. Most people won't give a shit about any argument that the anesthesiologist was functioning better than if he were in withdrawal... and they shouldn't, as going into withdrawal would have been the result of choices that the anesthesiologist made that affected his ability to do his job.
Right. Most employers who hire anesthesiologists (or pilots) would rather skip this hairy debate altogether, and simply hire only people for whom the entire debate would be moot.
The fact is, an anesthesiologist who has
ever used recreational drugs is a higher risk than one who has not, and statistics prove this.
Interestingly, an anesthesiologist who loses a patient on the operating table is probably out a career, period. Why? Because the market is saturated with anesthesiologists who have never lost anyone. Why would any patient or hospital take the risk on one who'd made a big mistake, when they'll have so much more peace of mind with one of the many who've made no mistakes?
I speak as a medical doctor who is not entirely substance free. I do not work in any state but sober, and plan my use of substances carefully so as to avoid any clouding of my judgement or risk to patients or my employer. I keep my mouth shut -- I have never even posted my real name, my photo, or my exact location here on BL. I think laws surrounding recreational drug use are unjust, and drug testing results correlate poorly with states of intoxication. But until those two things change, I do not begrudge my employer or my licensing board for looking out for their own asses, when it comes to me.
