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Notes -
Look, I think that the larger point everyone is trying to make is that whatever scheduling issues you are running into (24 hour shifts, 80 hours weeks), they will get much better if there are more doctors. There may be some good reasons, such as handoffs during surgery, to avoid a straight up 8 hour clock in / clock out, but that can be worked around. Somewhat trivially: if you are mid surgery and your shift is done then just finish the surgery. Keep doctors on salary, but keep them on 8 hour shifts with the expectation that they are to leave when the patient is stable or a hand off is feasible and negligibly bad.
The point is that there are not two (insane) options. There is a third option, hire more doctors and spread out the hours. Doctors might make less pay, but now they don't have to work 24 hour shifts. I think almost all doctors would take that trade off, and that seems like a great trade off for the patients as they don't have sleep impaired doctors attending to them.
From the outside - it looks like you are defending this system that you and no one else wants. Why? Why do you want to work 24 hour shifts? Why do you defend this system where you have impaired doctors attending to patients, as if there are no other options? Even without more doctors - why not do whatever the NHS apparently does, which is 13 hour shifts?
I am willing to get paid less to work less but that is somewhat orthogonal to my original post given that it is unlikely to reduce total costs to the taxpayer/economy.
I did want to point out that the insane shift schedule happens for a reason however (benefits are present, it is not just costs).
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