A medical resident worked 207 hours of overtime in a month. His case highlights Japan’s continuing problem with karoshi - death by overwork.
207 hours/month = 51.75 hours overtime per week, or a 92.75 hour workweek. Until recently, US residents worked those hours, too (it’s now technically capped at 80 hours, but there are exceptions.)
Medical training is toxic.
Find a country where medical residency doesn’t work like this. It’s an archaic holdover from the 1800s era when student doctors were trained by apprenticeship
But…. apprenticeships don’t have to be like that. Like there are apprenticeships for many other jobs, and they never are this abusive and awful.
During Covid I worked about 72-80 hours per week. It was awful. We were pulling guard on stockpiles of COVID vaccine since our president of our university was from Iran and he expected crazy right wing terrorism to try to destroy or steal them.
Money was incredible; the overtime was AWFUL. I single handedly think working that 6 months of overtime is now why I medically retired.
Same here. I worked overtime 45 out of 52 weeks in 2020. Only to come out of the pandemic and still have hospitals trying to push too many patients on us, understaff us, supply chain shortages… And they wonder why so many healthcare professionals have burnt out and quit the field.
On June 5th this year, the Nishinomiya Labor Standards Inspection Office approved the family’s claim and officially recognized Shingo’s suicide as a work accident. Recognition of suicide as a work accident allows the surviving family to receive compensation and claim damages.
Konan Medical Center compensated the Takashima family by paying them the amount of money Shingo would have received for working 207 hours and 50 minutes of overtime in the one month prior to his death.
The “compensation” is his earned overtime back pay?? Is that it, or am I missing something?
This has been going on for so long that it even found its way into pop-culture entertainment like Anime. Every other Isekai-Anime starts with the protagonist being worked to death by an abusive (dark) company. Its almost like a common disease in japan.
The key here is medical resident. They’re abused in every country and forced sleep on call in the hospital and pay is shit compared to attendings.
This shit right here. We need to completely overhaul the medical residency system. Corporations are literally killing these workers for profit and the hazing culture of medicine continues to ignore that fact.
Damn, I work around 36-40 hours a week, and that’s enough for me. I work to live, I don’t live to work.