https://www.overlawyered.com/2013/04/medical-roundup-9/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:15:58 +0000 hourly 1 https://www.overlawyered.com/2013/04/medical-roundup-9/comment-page-1/#comment-206294 Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:15:58 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=36571#comment-206294 If you read the whole article carefully, on how restricting resident hours may have increased medical error rates, it is suggested that one of the factors may be that residents are being required to do the same amount of work in less time, that the time restrictions have not resulted in in a lower patient load. I can see how that might actually increase the error rate. Residents are supposed to be in training, and are payed a fixed salary regardless of patient load – unlike already trained physicians who may bill by the hour/procedure. Therefore, one of the ways a hospital can improve its “bottom line” is by pushing more of the work onto residents. It’s an old issue, and given that residents don’t have the freedom to simply say “no”, we are not dealing with freedom to contract here.

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