The Effects of Burnout on Emergency Physicians

Emergency physicians spend a higher than would probably be preferred amount of time in a fatigue state while they are on shift. Their average is around six and a half hours of sleep when really that should be between seven and nine, and that their sleep quality was also deficient. About 24% of the time participants were at a reduced state to where it would be considered impaired with about 10% at what would be considered a legally impaired level for cognition if you were looking at driving. And we need to stop focusing on the individual and saying there's something wrong with them and start focusing more on fixing the actual underlying system that is grinding people down and spitting them out as husks of their former self.