Yup, you've only given us proof that doctors don't give a shit about patients.
There's a cap placed on residency hours per week and hours in a row, now. Yes, it's sometimes broken, but it's a lot better than 20 years ago. And, no, it's not routine practice to fake your timesheets. Or at least where I trained ~15 years ago, and not in the training program I assist overseeing. That being said, in some subspecialty fellowships I wouldn't doubt that it's more common to do this -- But they do this to gain more experience as you may only get a once in a decade experience if you stay on call and extra 2 hours. Who would deprive themselves that?
A doctor who gives a shit about patients would deprive himself of that, because your training time is not more important than the patient.
Penmanship is not taught in medical school. But electronic perscriptions are becoming more commonplace in the last few years (both on the outpatient and inpatient sides). And the last couple decades have brought on more responsibility of the patient to know what they are taking. The outpatient medication errors are the combined fault of the physician, the pharmacist, and the patient.
Your excuse is that penmanship isn't taught in medical school? SERIOUSLY?!? Penmanship is taught in elementary school and if doctors gave a shit about patients, then they'd use the training they got when they were ten years old and write properly.
I wouldn't say that anyone routinely operates on the wrong body part. But mistakes do happen. It's now standard of care to do a "time out" with the patient, nurse, and physician all in the operating room to agree on the patient's name, date of birth, and procedure to be performed before any sedation is administered or incisions are performed. But I once had a patient respond to a different name who expected to have the same procedure performed. Fortunately he was tripped up by the date of birth.
Oh good. The patient fixed your problem for you. That's wonderful. We're paying you out the nose and you come up with a system that somehow blames the patient for mistakes. I am so sick and tired of this, "The patient needs to take responsibility for their care." bullshit. When I take my car to the mechanic, they take responsibility for fixing the damn car. My mother is moderately mentally ill and I'm constantly annoyed by doctors who constantly ask her what her medical history is. She'll make shit up because she's embarrassed that she doesn't know. I've told doctors this, but no one tries to pass along this information to the next doctor. It's somehow *her* fault when the information isn't correct. Get a computer. Take some notes. Do something to help the patient. Remember that's your job.
As for washing hands, that's a culture change. My hospital has random people anonymously assigned to watch people enter and leave patient rooms to make sure we always wash in and out. (The people are people that work on the floors anyway.) A couple verbal warnings and suddenly everyone's compliant. No need for technology.
The OP point is still valid. If medical professionals cared about their patients, then all this big brother nonsense wouldn't be necessary.
And the younger generation of physicians are more humble. But that's also because they tread medicine as more of a job and less of a calling. I guess you can't get everything. :-(
Are you saying that humbler doctors would be a problem? Seriously? Doctors are so fucking full of themselves already that it's hard to tell them anything they don't want to hear. Guess what, to the rest of us, medicine *is* a job. You're a glorified car mechanic. It's funny that I find most car mechanics have better skills at diagnostics than more doctors do. As the patient, it isn't my *job* to fix my body. It's your *job*.