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0 pointsjajko1y ago0 comments

My wife is a doctor (GP, before internal medicine in biggest hospitals), experience with France and Switzerland. What you say is true - they all start as naive optimists who get treated brutally by whole healthcare system first 7-10 years after school, everybody knows it, often illegal from hospitals but good luck suing your employer. Burned out, 60-70 hour work weeks with weekends is the standard, night shifts, a lot of responsibility with little help/oversight. Always 1 oversight away from harming/killing somebody. Many in Switzerland that are Swiss dropped out, foreigners don't have it so easy.

Then afterwards they are put into position where they have 30 minutes for patients (in France its ridiculous 15 mins, saving money = worse diagnosis/treatment, no way around it). Don't expect miracles if they see 20 folks like you daily, ideally with very vague problems like chest pain which can be anything from sprained muscle due to bad sleeping position last night to heart attack, while having 10 other comorbidities and taking various medication.

Doctors behave as whole system forces them to behave.

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alex_duf1y ago· 1 in thread

Doctors burning-out is probably the worse red-flag you could have for a health system. It's frightening to think the person diagnosing my parents and children might not be in full possession of their capacity or make rash decisions.

I'm seeing the same pattern for many crucial functions having been pushed over the line during the last two decades or so. Whether it's a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a childminder, the police, etc. All the jobs that are essential for a developed society have crumbled down to the point I'd discourage any young person to pursue a career in that sector.

jajkoOP1y ago

If that worries you (and it should), never ever go to hospital during night (unless serious emergency of course) or very early morning, or generally just before the end of shifts. You will get potentially worse treatment by definition, depends on many things but probability is against you.

Also, the bigger the hospital usually the better experts they have on critical stuff (and more chance you won't wait long for ie CT or MRI), smaller hospitals and clinics just forward serious patients to big ones.

At the end healthcare is just another branch of market and all woes that apply to rest of us apply to them, no magical immunity due to more noble profession.