Almost three-quarters of doctors-in-training at the Shoalhaven District Hospital have been concerned about making a clinical error due to fatigue caused by the hours worked, according to new data.
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Similarly, 64.29 per cent of doctors-in-training have been "concerned about fatigue due to the number of hours hours worked."
The data is sourced from the Alliance NSW Hospital Health Check. which surveyed 1958 doctors-in-training throughout 2019.
The anonymous data was gathered to provide hospitals with grades in five different domains; overtime and rostering, access to leave, wellbeing, education and training, morale and culture.
The respondents at Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital cited rostering problems in the survey. 35.17 per cent of them said the rostered hours didn't match the hours worked and 21.43 per cent rate the workload as far too heavy.
Additionally, doctors-in-training are not immune to work pressures, with 28.57 per cent of respondents saying they didn't take sick leave when they shouldn't be at work.
These people cited "concerns about increasing workloads for other team members" and "no sick reviler" as reasons for not taking sick leave. 42.87 per cent would not consider using sick leave for mental health reasons.
Fifty per cent of respondents said they have poor access to leave.
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Of the respondents, 26 per cent were interns, 19 per cent were residents, 10 per cent were senior resident medical officers. Five per cent of the respondents were unaccredited specialty training registrars, 35 per cent were accredited specialty training registrars and three per cent were fellows.
While 57 per cent of respondents were females, 42 per cent were males and less than one per cent were non-binary.
The Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District (ISLHD) was also graded in the survey. The ISLHD overall got a 'c' , which is considered to be the middle grade by The Alliance. NSW overall received a 'c'. ISLHD received a 'd' grade for wellbeing, 'c' grades for overtime and rosters, education and training and 'b' grades for access to leave and morale and culture.
Comparatively, the Central Coast LHD which has a similar population to the ISLHD received a 'b' grade over all, with an 'a' in morale and culture, 'b' grades in access to leave and education and training and 'c' grades in access to leave and wellbeing.
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