AMA VICDOC Spring 2023 - Magazine - Page 24
KATE The past few years have been crazy.
I think we spoke by phone about three
years ago.
HAYDEN
Yes, it’s been a long road.
KATE You rang me to ask me questions
about my experience working at
Eastern health and my unpaid overtime.
I remember we talked about how it was
detrimental to doctors’ health, and you
explained to me that you thought it was
time doctors did something about it.
HAYDEN That’s right, I had been looking
at this issue in NSW and was reading a lot
at the time about doctors who had suffered
enormous distress from the pressure and
the fatigue caused by working such long
hours. You might recall a book published
at that time by a doctor named Yumiko
Kadota which was very damning of the
culture of the hospital workplace; the
bullying and the harassment in particular.
That, together with other media reports
around that time, sparked my interest to
explore this issue more.
KATE How did those first calls with
doctors go?
HAYDEN Doctors felt angry, not so much
about their unpaid hours, but the fact
that their work was not being properly
recognized. They felt worried that their
excessive hours were causing fatigue and
with that, a sense that a catastrophe was just
around the corner if making a clinical error
or overlooking something for a patient.
KATE This is one of the reasons I really
wanted to get involved but there’s a culture
in medicine that you don’t speak up. We are
taught to deescalate; we are taught to not
ruffle any feathers. There’s a lot of pressure
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AMA VI C TO RIA
for doctors to perform, to get on training
programs and to get good results and good
marks. Anything that could potentially
jeopardize that, like speaking up about your
overtime, is something doctors tend to avoid.
HAYDEN That’s so true. In those early
discussions, it struck me how hierarchical
the workplace is for doctors. There was
this perspective held by junior doctors,
that consultants were these demigods, and
that Heads of Departments ran these mini
kingdoms that set the hours that should
be worked, irrespective of what was fair
or reasonable or compliant under the law.
KATE Isn’t your job like that?
HAYDEN Law is also hierarchical too, but
over the last 20 years, it now resembles more
a modern workplace through corporatization
and improved work practices. There are
exceptions as in any sector, but I was
fortunate in my early career to be part of a
law firm that valued the contribution of its
junior employees. I’m not saying medicine
is never this, but what struck me when I
spoke to junior doctors was that our public
hospitals are still stuck in yesteryear. It felt
like a workplace that hadn’t really changed
over the years; that some work practices
doctors are complaining about today are
the same work practices doctors tolerated
30, 40, 50 years ago.
KATE And this is why the recent calls to
action are so important?
HAYDEN That’s right. It’s about forcing
hospital management to face the reality
that their work practices must change.
And unless they change, junior doctors
will leave the system.
