The Swedish government is conducting an experiment on productivity in the workplace by offering a small group of government officials six-hour work days, but Dike Drummond, a life and career strategist for physicians, doesn't think the U.S. would even entertain such a prospect.
He explained in a HuffPost Live interview on Monday that much of the schooling American physicians (as well as law enforcement and firemen) receive imparts the importance of working round-the-clock.
"We're strongly conditioned to be workaholics in our training," Drummond told host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani. "There's programming that says the patient comes first, and if that's true, where do I come? I would nominate last."
He added that doctors face intense pressure to be ready to work at a moment's notice.
"Never show weakness," he said. "If there's [a patient] to be admitted, you're going to step up and take care of the work."
Drummond expects that once physicians "team up" and practice medicine in a group-like fashion, it could give them an opportunity to scale back their hours.
"Until we get doctors moving to the team-based care that's going to happen in the future and teach them the leadership skills, delegation skills and all those kind of things to do team based care, I can't see any doctor thinking that they're going to do a six-hour workday or a four-day work week and get the job done," he explained. "It's just not part of the culture from the very first day you enter medical school."
Watch the full HuffPost Live segment on burnout in the workplace below:
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