Doctors Work When They Are Sick: Survey

Most health professionals including physicians, who participated in a recent survey, admitted they worked when they were sick.

According to NBC News, most of the 500 physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, assistants and midwives surveyed, said they had turned up at work when they knew they shouldn't. While many explained they did not want to let their patients or colleagues down, others cited absence of sick relief policy and shortage of staff, for turning up at work when sick.

"Attending physicians and APCs frequently work while sick despite recognizing that this choice puts patients at risk. The decision to work sick is shaped by systems-level and socio-cultural factors. Multimodal interventions are needed to reduce the frequency of this behavior," the study's authors wrote in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. Nearly 94 percent of the survey participants said they knew working when sick put the patient at risk.

The survey done by health professionals from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, found that 83 percent of the participants reported working while sick at least once last year.

Many participants also pointed to the existence of a strong cultural norm that required them to work unless very ill. Then there were concerns about what colleagues would think if they reported sick.