ELI5:Why are braces so expensive ?

I'm only acting as the devil's advocate here, I think 100 hour work weeks are inhumane and a recipe for medical error. The US Americans have reduced them to 24 hour shifts max now, with 80 hour work weeks. I don't know how real that figure is. I think it's generally agreed that it should be changed but the question is how to do so without compromising patient care.

The long hours provide a greater continuity of care for any doctor and allows doctors to observe the natural history of any disease for longer. The majority of residents actually believe that training has got worse as training hours have reduced. Training has to be geared to not only look after current patients but future patients as well and producing independent clinicians who have done enough practice is essential. And endurance is part of the ability of practicing medicine. You should be training doctors who are capable of making the correct decisions in a professional manner whether it's hour one of the shift or hour twenty four.

There has also been no empirical proof that shorter work hours make patients safer. Yes, there's the whole increase risk of error but is that risk higher than the cumulative risk of an increased number of staff with less experience at handling stressful situations at the edge of physical limitations? While, deductively, we can say that there is evidence by piecing a lot of different factors (tiredness, error rate etc.) together I don't believe anyone's ever done a comprehensive study.

Additionally, there's hiring more doctors. The healthcare system in the US, and I'm always surprised to hear about this with the amount of money in the US, is under strain from the point of view of medical staff. If you no longer want doctors working 80 hours, you need someone to cover that extra time. For every two doctors now working 80 hours, you might need 4-5 doctors working 48 hour shifts. Hospitals are wary about creating resident posts beyond what Medicare funds.

This would also create a bottleneck at the Fellowship and higher stages where they do work less hours. If the seniors are currently working 48~ hours each and are currently being replaced by one doctor (roughly) as they retire how would the system cope with three doctors stepping into their place. Now intuitively you'd think more doctors would be good but how will the finances cope? Slash wages? Reduce working hours?

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