I always figured the long shifts for doctors were some kind of hazing ritual.It means you don't need a night shift and the "medical team" is always together which equates to better training and was supposed to lead to better continuity of care.
Those shifts became unworkable as medicine became more and more complex and hands-on. There have been quite a few papers about quality of care including some recent ones that suggest that patient mortality is not adversely affected by mega-shifts, but IME mistakes are more likely after so many hours.
These days in the US I think 36-hour shifts and 80-hour weeks are a specified upper limit. Pansies. ;-)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
