There’s been a lot of talk in the last few months about how the brutal schedules of young interns affect patient care. I know firsthand how they also affect doctors’ families. So when I heard about the recent lawsuit filed by residents seeking to raise their salaries and reduce their workload, I was overjoyed. My husband quickly informed me that New York state has attempted to limit residents’ hours for years; from the amount of free time we’ve had, I’d say the attempt has been less than successful.
Contrary to popular belief, a Mercedes and a standing tee time are not issued with a medical-school diploma. Doctors who want to specialize know they must go through at least three years of residency training. It’s a learning period when interns receive invaluable hands-on experience along with a staggering work schedule–100 hours a week in some cases, with straight shifts of up to 40 hours. And that’s just a physician’s program. An aspiring surgeon can log many more hours.
What does this mean to a wife? It means having a nearly invisible spouse. My new husband has been reduced to a very large lump that occasionally occupies our bed. Before he goes to sleep, I rub his blistered feet and peel the scrubs off his aching body. That’s not to say he doesn’t try to be attentive to me as well; last week he picked up a dozen roses on his crawl home from another stressful all-nighter. By the time I returned from putting them in a vase, he was asleep in the chair.
When he is awake, he is tired to the bone. His mind is adrift in the myriad details of the previous 24 hours’ work. I often wonder how residents who don’t have spouses for support–both emotional and financial–ever manage.
When my husband does get a full day off, his body hurts so much that we are limited to activities within a two-block radius of our home. Next Christmas? He’s on call. We remind each other that by staying home we’ll avoid the flight hassles that come with visiting our families. Given his salary constraints (the average resident pulls in about $10 an hour), frankly, it’s not a bad idea.
But physicians are eventually well compensated for their suffering, you might say. Why should we feel sorry for them? Because when they push you feet first through those swinging metal doors, their fatigue becomes your problem and not just that of a concerned wife or husband. Drunken pilots have caused much controversy, but the airline industry doesn’t host keg parties and then send them out in force. Is the orchestrated exhaustion of health-care workers any less of a concern?
My husband, a former foreign correspondent for a major metropolitan newspaper, is accustomed to the rigors of a stressful profession. Despite his unusual fortitude, he is weary. Very weary. And so are the other residents. They’re young, they care and they want to help you get better, but the culture of medicine itself could stand in their way.
Occasionally, my husband and I talk about the rigors of his work, and I begin to understand why that burdened look rarely leaves his face. The other night he came home after inserting his first chest tube, a rather violent procedure. One wrong move and you can puncture a liver or, worse, an aorta. He performed it without complications, but the responsibility of what could have happened plagued him. I just listened. I’m helpless to do anything else.
Hundreds of thousands of doctors and their families have survived this experience before us. I consider it fortunate that my work as a writer covers our bills, but it’s little compensation for watching the person I care about pay such a high price to do what he loves.
Luckily, newlywed bliss continues to sustain us. We’ll go on stealing what-ever time we can–until the pager goes off again.
