This is due to the higher rates of mortality and other problems during transitions, which you are likely aware of. Reducing from 3 shifts per day to 2 or even 1 can increase problems from fatigue, but those are typically less than the problems from worker transitions.
This consideration leaves out some important aspects, however:
- It is untrue. While it is true that transitions (of any kind, there are many of them happening during shifts!) increase the risk of something going wrong, the impact of fatigue is in my experience by far dominating for the serious stuff. During my years, all seriously bad decisions, all serious complications, and all obvious deaths-caused-by-physician that I've seen happened due to one of these:
- extreme hybris (unrelated to fatigue)
- fatigue in the excitement stage (that's when you don't feel tired at all, you think you are invincible, you can do anything)
- (1) and (2) combined
- fatigue in the clumsy hands stage (just what the name says)
- not enough time
- fatigue in the dementia stage (when you're running on autopilot, and no longer make good, conscious decisions)
- all of the above combined on two or three people working together
- It is irrelevant. Physicians are humans, too. No matter what you think how big your testicles are and what kind of a superhero you are, there is a limit to what your human body can deliver. It is not so much noticeable when you are still 25, but it gradually starts showing when the first digit is a "3". Burning out, and destroying a person purposely, even if it is for some alleged higher goal (which is a lie, it's just for maximizing profit), is unethical. The socialists always insist that it's unfair to exploit the worker class. They say nothing about exploiting, and totally destroying others, who are humans too. A law which deserves the label "justice" should not be unethical in such a way.
- Secondary effects of this systematic abuse have very noticeable impact as well which are (deliberately) not recorded or correlated. Alcohol and drugs, to mention one. What, physicians and alcohol? Doesn't exist! Family issues (or lack thereof) and alienation, to mention another. Among all peers that I still have contact with, I'm the only one who is married for 20 years, not an alcoholic (and/or other... things), and happy with his life. How come? Well, I quit before the system could destroy me. As usual, I was lucky (I seem to always be lucky when it comes to important things). One of the things (not the decisive reason, but it certainly helped!) that contributed to my leaving back then was when I came to work on a Sunday morning. My peer, a young woman (under 30 years old) didn't turn up for the transition, she was nowhere to be found, no message, nothing, phone was not being answered. Nobody had seen her since the evening, and nobody had bothered searching for her (hey, disappearing for no apparent reason is perfectly normal, no indication that something might have happened) but sure enough everybody was upset that their very important problems weren't addressed. I found her (by coincidence) around noon on the floor in the locker room, passed out on alcohol. A young human destroyed, nobody gives a fuck. Yeah, you never read about such things in the newspaper because the public would despair if they knew the people responsible for their health and lives pass out on alcohol during their shift... therefore such things don't happen. But they do, and way too often.
