WHILE much of the population wakes to a new working week this morning, Dr Dela Osthoff will have clocked up 103 working hours since last Monday morning.
A junior doctor at Merlin Park Hospital in Galway, she has just completed a week that is almost treble many normal working weeks, but it was a "normal" week for nonconsultant hospital doctors, or junior doctors as they are known.
Dr Osthoff, who qualified in 1990, knows that by this morning she will be exhausted, particularly after a long weekend of duty. It began on Saturday morning at 9.30 a.m., will end, she hopes, at lunchtime today, but it could go on for a few hours after that. She returns to work at 9.30 a.m. tomorrow.
She works roughly every fifth weekend and mostly one night a week, if not two, on top of her rostered 39 hour week. It is a tough job, she says.
"Everyone lives in dread of their weekend on. It is very hard on you personally and your friends and partners have to be very tolerant. You are constantly exhausted and of course it is dangerous to be treating patients when you have had so little sleep," says Dr Osthoff.
"This weekend was not so bad but a weekend when we are on `take', emergency call - it's crazy. On the last such weekend I got one hour of sleep on Saturday night and slept from 5 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. on Monday morning before doing an out patient clinic. I can't explain how tired I was."
On top of working those hours, junior doctors must also study for exams. "There is a high failure crate and it is not surprising. People are too tired to study."
In a six month period at Merlin Park Hospital, junior doctors receive just over three weeks holiday and two additional weeks leave if they are sitting exams. On average they work 70 hours a week, says Dr Osthoff, but get paid for just 65.
Some peripheral hospitals, she says, have the worst rotas.
Dr Osthoff says her contract does not recognise unsocial hours, pay a shift allowance or properly recognise overtime.
"For this whole weekend I am actually working on half pay.
"People tell me that I chose this career but you don't really realise how bad it is until you do it. Most people doing this are interested in training to be consultants but there are very, very few consultant positions.
"It is particularly difficult for some of them to speak out if they feel they are not being treated fairly or are on unfair rotas. They often feel they would be discriminated against or endanger their, career.
Dr Osthoff thinks junior doctors "are abused by the Department of Health, almost because it is just a tradition, that they work such long hours.
Her interest lies in general practice and she has completed a number of examinations over the past few years in paediatrics and obstetrics.
She has a certificate in family's planning and membership in general practice both here and in Britain.
"However, things are looking very bleak out there for people wanting to be GPs." She says if she were to do an assistantship with a GP it would mean a substantial drop in salary.