PSoTD

Note to pet owners: pets don't always know not to eat wild mushrooms, as this sad story attests.

And the same goes for people.

From the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality:

Nearly 84 percent of medical interns reported that they are continuing to work hours that exceeded the limits of a 2003 national standard implemented by the medical profession, a new study finds. A related study concludes that interns are much more likely to injure themselves mistakenly with a needle or another sharp instrument when working in a hospital more than 20 consecutive hours, or at night.

The studies appear in the September 6, 2006, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and were funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. These findings build on previous research and the growing awareness that sleep-deprived first-year doctors in training (interns) working traditional 24-hour shifts make many more serious medical errors and crash their cars more often than those whose work is limited to 16 consecutive hours.

And why aren't the standards being followed?

Study authors offer several reasons why non-compliance with the ACGME work-hour rules may be high. Because the standards were created without taking account of financial or technical implementation, residency programs may not have the resources to redesign their programs appropriately. Non-compliance might also be due to the culture within a particular medical institution. Some senior physicians have expressed disapproval of work-hour limits, while others do not believe fatigue represents a threat to patient safety.

I suspect we're going to see a rash of lawsuits relative to this in the near future... which unfortunately, appears to be how these medical institutions are going to be forced to follow the standard, as penalties for failure to enforce.

What do the following people have in common?

George Orwell
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eugene O'Neill
Frederic Chopin
Simon Bolivar
Vivien Leigh
James Monroe

They all died of tuberculosis.

In Ireland.