Overworked doctors are a danger to all

We British doctors are about to stage an unprecedented strike, and the public is on our side, said Ben Kirk. Later this month, junior doctors— known in the U.S. as medical residents—will walk off the job en masse, including from emergency room duty. Some 5,000 nonemergency surgeries have already been canceled. No patients will be harmed, because we’ve given enough notice that senior doctors and other practitioners will be able to cover ERs. In fact, we are doing this because we care about our patients. The Conservative government is “hell-bent on delivering on its manifesto pledge” that the National Health Service will provide routine services seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Yet it refuses to hire more doctors or raise their pay. Instead, it is simply increasing junior doctors’ work hours. Already, most of us are toiling “within a whisker of mental and physical burnout.” A confidential clinic set up to treat doctors says many younger doctors are suffering PTSD-like symptoms because their hours are so intense. Such overwork “very much risks patient safety.” We all know that “the link between fatigue and adverse events is as well documented in medicine as it is in aviation.” Give us junior doctors a rest—or patients will suffer.