There is always someone who loses when healthcare professionals work too many hours: patients. Dangerous is to believe that it is possible to have a quality healthcare system at the cost of excessive work and exhausted professionalsand dissatisfied.
We can all have opinions. What is worrying is seeing such a complex subject treated in a simplistic and biased way. The truth is that the scientific literature does not advocate increasing doctors’ working hours. On the contrary: long working hours and insufficient rest are associated with more medical errors and worse patient care (1,2). Furthermore, overwork increases the risk of burnout, which translates into lower quality of care. (3) and greater professional dissatisfaction. Node your As a whole, this leads to more resignations and abandonment of services, damaging the continuity of care and burdening those who remain. A vicious circle is created whose last victim is always the same: the quality of medicine and the health care provided to the Portuguese (4,5).
It is month, the European Junior Doctors (EJD) published the REST Report (6)a study that shows that European doctors — including Portuguese ones — already work more hours, and not less, as some claim. The World Health Organization reinforces this concern in its report MeND (7)where he warns that doctors and nurses work excessively, have high rates of burnout and that this compromises the quality of care and the sustainability of health systems.
After all, there is always someone who loses when healthcare professionals work too many hours, are tired or burnout: patients. The results are inevitable—worse care, more errors, less empathy, and longer wait times. The opposite is also true: one of the most important factors for better healthcare is the well-being of professionals, including a healthy balance between personal and professional life. (8).
So, instead of blaming 18-year-olds for your choice of course or issuing unfounded warnings about risks to patients based on individual opinions, perhaps we should ask the really important question: what can we do to improve healthcare while ensuring the satisfaction of the professionals who work in it?
Because, let us not deceive ourselves: either one generational change or the impact of a post-pandemic world, healthcare professionals demand — and rightly so — a balance between professional and personal life. Whether we like it or not, “that is now the job”.
And, in the end, the truly dangerous opinion for patients is that of those who believe that it is possible to have a quality healthcare system at the cost of excessive work and exhausted and dissatisfied professionals.
- Landrigan et al. (2004) Effect of reducing interns’ work hours on serious medical errors in intensive care units. N Engl J Med.
- Barger et al. (2006) Impact of extended-duration shifts on medical errors, adverse events, and attentional failures. PLoS Med.
- Brunsberg et al. (2019) Association of Pediatric Resident Physician Depression and Burnout With Harmful Medical Errors on Inpatient Services. Acad With.
- Barriball et al. (2015) Recruitment and Retention of the Health Workforce in Europe. European Commission.
- Centre et. (2023) From tradition to transition: navigating through the healthcare workforce crisis. European Junior Doctors Association.
- Berhanu et al. (2025) REST-JD Report: Research on European Junior Doctors’ Satisfaction and Working Time. Brussels: European Junior Doctors Association. 2025. ISBN: 9782960337655.
- Mental Health of Nurses and Doctors survey in the European Union, Iceland and Norway. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe; 2025. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
- Bodenheimer and Sinsky. (2014) From triple to quadruple aim: care of the patient requires care of the provider. Ann Fam Med.