[mentalhealth]

It's extremely difficult to study the effects of sleep deprivation on the rate of medical error, but several studies have shown that the highest numbers of medical errors occur during handoffs between shifts. Reducing the frequency of those handoffs by increasing shift length reduces the total number of detectable medical errors.

Additionally, the work hour restrictions placed on residents over the last few years appear to have done nothing to reduce the overall number of medical errors.

(I am in favor of reducing medical work hours myself, but these are some of the data-driven reasons that it will be very difficult, not to mention the structural reasons inherent to the current system of medical training.)

[judk]

By having more doctors working less intensely for overlapping shifts, they can take more time to complete handoff documentation and conversations properly, and have fewer handoffs (by taking on fewer patients after the first half of their shift)

[nine_k]

Longer shifts does not mean that doctors can't have longer sleep that 4 hours. Let doctors have 16 or even 18-hour long shifts interleaved with days without shifts at all, for sleeping and some [light] paperwork.

[philsnow]

This is, I believe, how firefighters work: long shifts of oncall where they live in the firehouse, separated by longer periods of non-work (rest, sleep, whatever).