*sunflower*
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2001
- Messages
- 1,070
I'm a registered nurse and have worked in the Qld public hospital system for 10 years.
I can honestly say that sleep deprivation, even moderately, has just as detrimental an effect on a person's memory, behaviour and ability to perform skills as drugs.
The way I see it, up here in the fabulous system we call Qld Health, the three issues affecting health professionals currently is sleep deprivation, excessive levels of stress and job dissatisfaction.
I've made two medication errors as a young nurse - both were because I was off my face from being, simply put, tired. Neither error was from me going out and partying (which I did then, and still do, but only, as others have said, on my days off) which are my business.
I remember one morning having the shakes and having blurred vision after 6 night duties in a row and drawing up the insulins for the morning shift (I don't sleep well during the day when I have night shifts, I average around about 3 hours a day).
Also found a lump in my breast one morning and was too late to call in sick, was hysterical basically and had to go to work. Calmed down by the time I got there but if you think I had my mind on the job think again. Also had to deal with a parent with cancer and go to work and ........... look after sick people! Again, for 5 months or so, was often spaced out and had to concentrate really hard at work. Took a lot of sick leave then.
In an ideal world, which we clearly don't live in, doctors, nurses, physios, OTs, and psychologists would be perfect, robotic human beings who never make errors, never get angry, never get emotional, never do anything wrong basically. Essentially, we are all human. And that's that. Also, other professionals have a lot of responsibility - air traffic controllors, pilots, bus drivers, mechanics, etc etc, do we apply the same logic to them?
The people I've worked with, doctors, allied health, other nurses - I may not have always liked them as people, but most of them are excellent professionals in their field and I would gladly choose them to look after me, if I were sick. If they took a pill every so often or had a few vodkas on their weekends, I certainly wouldn't have known it (and I'm sure at least some of them have).
I can honestly say that sleep deprivation, even moderately, has just as detrimental an effect on a person's memory, behaviour and ability to perform skills as drugs.
The way I see it, up here in the fabulous system we call Qld Health, the three issues affecting health professionals currently is sleep deprivation, excessive levels of stress and job dissatisfaction.
I've made two medication errors as a young nurse - both were because I was off my face from being, simply put, tired. Neither error was from me going out and partying (which I did then, and still do, but only, as others have said, on my days off) which are my business.
I remember one morning having the shakes and having blurred vision after 6 night duties in a row and drawing up the insulins for the morning shift (I don't sleep well during the day when I have night shifts, I average around about 3 hours a day).
Also found a lump in my breast one morning and was too late to call in sick, was hysterical basically and had to go to work. Calmed down by the time I got there but if you think I had my mind on the job think again. Also had to deal with a parent with cancer and go to work and ........... look after sick people! Again, for 5 months or so, was often spaced out and had to concentrate really hard at work. Took a lot of sick leave then.
In an ideal world, which we clearly don't live in, doctors, nurses, physios, OTs, and psychologists would be perfect, robotic human beings who never make errors, never get angry, never get emotional, never do anything wrong basically. Essentially, we are all human. And that's that. Also, other professionals have a lot of responsibility - air traffic controllors, pilots, bus drivers, mechanics, etc etc, do we apply the same logic to them?
The people I've worked with, doctors, allied health, other nurses - I may not have always liked them as people, but most of them are excellent professionals in their field and I would gladly choose them to look after me, if I were sick. If they took a pill every so often or had a few vodkas on their weekends, I certainly wouldn't have known it (and I'm sure at least some of them have).
