My wife probably averages 2-3 hours of sleep a night. She is going to nursing school for her RN while working as an LPN and interning. From a sociological perspective, the medical system is broken in many, many ways. One of them is the amount of hazing upon its students and medical staff it disguises as rigor. There is a certain irony to the workload I am seeing her under showing a complete disregard for her mental health. I help as I can, but I couldn’t do it. This career would inherently keep out people like myself who are bipolar or suffering from similar neurological issues which require adequate rest and recreation. She’s all work and no play. I miss her, and am rather self-centered in how I view this career choice. However, while my respect for her is overwhelming, I’ve completely lost all respect for the academic process by which we indoctrinate our medical professionals. It’s at their expense, and the result is a mentally exhausted workforce that loses empathy for those who have the very health problems they are going to end up treating. Simply put; by showing a complete disregard for the mental health of our healthcare employees, we show a complete disregard for mental health inherently. It’s reprehensible, counter-productive, and dismissive of the human value of the broken, flawed and needy. The medical system ends up devaluing itself beyond monetary incentives; the worst motivator to help heal people. How could it be otherwise for our health care providers though, when the system doesn’t care about their mental health?
This is not a critique of nurses and doctors. It is a critique of a broken system that eats nurses, doctors, etc.. The for-profit system in America needs to change starting with the educational system as being both a risky investment and then tries to run out people now in unforgivable debt by providing a workload that isn’t healthy to endure. It’s drawing in the wrong personalities and keeping out the plethora of diversity that it should endeavor to try to include. It’s become too risky, expensive and self-destructive for anyone who can’t gamble at failure in an educational system without forgiveness. The hazing is insane and the hours provoke marital conflicts if not just from the burnout and fatigue of long hours and stress. My hats off to anyone who can make it through, but the system needs reformation from those who understand the problem and still care.
Joker's Wild 