The final year medical students, all over Victoria experienced, last week, tremendous work pressure and the rest hours were like dream to them. They will start working as doctors from the beginning of January 2011.

All these would-be doctors are highly motivated, compassionate and educated, but for the tremendous workloads which they are taking just going in for the internship are making them so exhausted that they can’t but ignore the well being of the patient which they really care for.

Many junior doctors are working shifts that is far more than the mentioned safe hours in the guidelines. According to the latest Australian Medical Association survey, the working hours of sixty one percent of interns and resident doctors may put patients at risk. This survey was based on the length of individual shifts, how many hours spent in night shifts, total number of hours worked in a week and whether the doctors got enough time between shifts to take adequate rest.

The survey concluded saying that the work patterns evolved out in the study can be termed risky.

All along junior doctors have worked long hours. They are attached to training hospitals as intern or resident’s .The situation has got better than what it was in the days of shifts for multiple days but long unsafe hours are pretty much in practice.

This practice can’t be accepted as it is evident that if a doctor works for too long a period, he or she gets tired and technical skills of the said doctor gets impaired. This in turn makes the doctor complacent and the doctor can’t attend the patient with compassion, which is detrimental to the patient.

Hospital Administration is mainly responsible for these occurrences. There are many practices which do not allow the junior doctors to work safe hours. It has to change. Both the junior doctors and administration has to look into this matter to sort things out.