U.S. Senator John McCain called on Tuesday for an immediate stop to U.S. sailors working over 100 hours a week as top Navy leaders struggled to explain a series of fatal naval collisions in the past few months.
Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office government watchdog said that a reduction in crew sizes was contributing to safety risks, with some sailors working over 100 hours a week.
Reflecting a sentiment we found common among interviewed sailors, ET2 James Ramirez said "The work schedules are crazy, I hardly see my boyfriend. It's stressful and causes problems in our relationship."
Studies on MD residents similar working hours have shown sleep deprived docs function about as well as drunk ones. The hours are dumb but in place for cultural reasons despite poor performance. I've heard similar complaints about SWO culture.
One of the downsides of the Internet is that it allows like-minded people to form communities, and sometimes those communities are stupid.
Grandpa's Spells wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2017 1:14 am
Studies on MD residents similar working hours have shown sleep deprived docs function about as well as drunk ones. The hours are dumb but in place for cultural reasons despite poor performance. I've heard similar complaints about SWO culture.
That would make sense if working these shifts was a recent development; as I understand it this type of shift work have been going on for a long time. Doesn't explain the recent surge of problems. There may have also been a uptick in the threat level that we don't know about too.
"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule
I may have read too much Patrick O'Brian, but I thought sailors worked 4-hr watches. You'd have to double-up to get to 100. Right?
Benny16 said "The work schedules are crazy, I hardly see my boyfriend. It's stressful and causes problems in our relationship."
Sounds like Shaf needs to send more pictures.
“War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want.”
― William Tecumseh Sherman
JimZipCode wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2017 7:50 am
I may have read too much Patrick O'Brian, but I thought sailors worked 4-hr watches. You'd have to double-up to get to 100.
Standing watch is on top of your "day job", so if you are, say, the ships meteorologist, you can also be bridge qualified and doing that too (driving the ship).
My understanding is that long grueling hours are part of military training. A "working day" when the war starts is not regulated, and compromised safety is cost or preparing for the worst. It's also the opportunity to put systems in place that reduce the risks. It used to be the same in medicine: as an intern your ass belongs to the hospital (literally: "intern" = internalized to the hospital). Very high work load while the ability to make serious mistakes is limited by supervision. So if the job strains the relationship you have to change either the former or the latter.
Speaking of working hours of medical staff. Following the death of Libby Zion in 1984 the law was introduced that was limiting working hours of junior medical staff, specifically interns and residents. As always, this measure was introduced without the intention of following up the outcomes. It would be best to introduce it in some hospitals or states and then compare the outcomes several years later. However, several observational studies did find the decline in the quality of care and education of the above interns. The law that regulated the hours also gave the interns the opportunity to be literally militant about the end of their shifts. The luxury that senior doctors don't have: the surgeon (anaesthetist, physician) will not leave the patient if there are issues that needed to be sorted out.
So, on one hand Libby Zion Law gave the interns more rest time, but at the same time negatively affected education and continuity of care. I am not sure if any parallels can be drawn between medical field and the Navy.
