Hospital.Help

Berlin Many doctors in training are dissatisfied with their working hours. This is shown by a new survey by the Hartmannbund (HB), in which around 500 young doctors took part.

Around 70 percent of those surveyed said they were unable to comply with the legally prescribed break times. More than 40 percent of employed young doctors were also unable to document their overtime or could only do so to a limited extent, often because this was not desired by management.

This shows that we finally need the cultural change in hospitals that has long been overdue, said Caroline Rinkel, spokeswoman for the HB Committee for Assistant Doctors.

The existing personnel problems in patient care cannot be compensated in the long term by unpaid overtime, but only by a more efficient system, an optimized way of working and more staff, says Rinkel.

More than 40 percent of those surveyed rate the personnel situation at their employer as inadequate. More than one in ten trainees lack a contact person for technical questions.

36 percent of those affected have already thought about changing careers. According to the survey, reasons for this desire to change careers include little free time, little time for medical training and a lack of appreciation.

According to the survey, digitization is also making slow progress. For 70 percent, duplicate documentation is still part of everyday work. Only about half of the survey participants have a work cell phone, and only ten percent have a tablet. For more than 90 percent, problems with the IT infrastructure are part of everyday work.

Functional working time models, new work approaches, home office options and a huge change in terms of digitalization are needed so that young doctors are happy to continue working in hospitals even after they have achieved specialist qualifications, said Jan Baumann, also a spokesman for the committee. According to the survey, only about a quarter of those surveyed can currently imagine this. © hil/aerzteblatt.de