As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.”
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla precisely!
One rather sees bosses sending people home due to pushing themselves sick to work than anyone trying to "abuse" sick leave…
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla we still are in a pandemic that most people are trying to memory hole instead of trying to protect themselves. of course people get sick a lot. this entire society is a bad joke.
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@ozeng @alicemcalicepants you're of course absolutely right. However, my post merely suggested arguments I hear from patients every single day. Other factors (career, keeping job, ...) lie deeper and are not as easily exposed in a standard consultation.
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@hoppla Those who don't want to work, what do they want to do?
I doubt anyone wants to sit and feel useless, and there are many ways to contribute to society that we don't think of as "work".@zash I can't applaud loud enough for this view. In a world shifted by AI we need a radical new understanding about what we want to call work. As far as I comphrend social sciences is working on it for decades already.
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Long Covid can easily be confused with burnout, which also has severe fatigue, brain fog, inability to focus.
One is caused by a virus driving the brain's immune system in overdrive, the other by trying to do too much.
And they can interact. If you brain is mush from a virus, you can try and push through, and then push you over de edge.
CC @frozette
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla
When someone uses the phrase “people don’t want to work” it can mean that people don't want to work as hard and as cheap that someone wants.May that person may only work with non-yellow unions.
Edit: essentially you cannot not work in a pay-to-live system.
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla it applies to training also - the psychology but back it up with data #preventative care #human factors engineering #bioinformatics
for certain patients tell them to pray and believe in placebo effect plus see what ai thinks - almost like unit testing, if it helps find that one outlier case could be worth the electricity usage #house ai #localagi -
As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla @quixoticgeek I see the same framing in France and it’s dangerous.
I know that I had my GP angry at me for working with the flu, or when I took pills because work was awful. I’m glad he gave me the talk (even if… well… I continue working from home when I’m sick, like an idiot) -
@hoppla thank you for saying this as a GP. My wife has struggled with chronic pain and other serious medical issues all stemming from a workplace injury for which she never received long term compensation or support for. She has a deep work ethic and feels constant guilt and shame for not being able to work. She feels responsible for her own disability while at the same time feeling deep frustration with the systems and workplaces that have so obviously failed her.
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In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority.
and that is why work should be optional, so the majority of people who do want to actively contribute to society can do that with agency and without all the stress, and the rest can live whatever life they want for themselves
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla We complain about not having enough GPs, or about people overloading emergency rooms for peanuts. But suddenly it's perfectly OK to ask people who have a light flu and who know they just need 2-3 days rest, to consume medical ressources just to have that paper filled and stamped.
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@hoppla thank you for saying this as a GP. My wife has struggled with chronic pain and other serious medical issues all stemming from a workplace injury for which she never received long term compensation or support for. She has a deep work ethic and feels constant guilt and shame for not being able to work. She feels responsible for her own disability while at the same time feeling deep frustration with the systems and workplaces that have so obviously failed her.
@chris I'm so sorry. I can only try to imagine what it's like for your wife (living with pain, and maybe with the quieter ache of feeling unseen by the systems that were supposed to catch her). That loss of identity, of feeling needed in the ways she once was, sounds like its own kind of grief. I hope she finds moments, even small ones, where she feels like herself again, not because she's contributing, but just because she's here. 🫶
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
It goes far deeper than that. Look at any organism, it needs to do enough to keep itself and offspring alive. Survival. I look at work as a genetic part of us. Those who work live those who don't won't.
I was a caseworker for welfare (US style, begging) the stats were people were on support programs an average of 2.5 years. Even those we consider fraudulent have to work to keep hearth & home. People with disabilities live? on a tiny stipend. We have been harnessed to the plow.
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It goes far deeper than that. Look at any organism, it needs to do enough to keep itself and offspring alive. Survival. I look at work as a genetic part of us. Those who work live those who don't won't.
I was a caseworker for welfare (US style, begging) the stats were people were on support programs an average of 2.5 years. Even those we consider fraudulent have to work to keep hearth & home. People with disabilities live? on a tiny stipend. We have been harnessed to the plow.
Work has required more and more from each of us for less for us. I'm out of the 40's, when we could have a few extras. Many of us. Education was affordable as was food, housing, transportation & medical wasn't being used as a cudgel to get more and more $. Even then many didn't have access. I made $1.25hr minimum wage & had a roof, transport, food while going to college & a beer after. Instead of going forward we had those at the top stripping us of what little we had gained.
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@chris I'm so sorry. I can only try to imagine what it's like for your wife (living with pain, and maybe with the quieter ache of feeling unseen by the systems that were supposed to catch her). That loss of identity, of feeling needed in the ways she once was, sounds like its own kind of grief. I hope she finds moments, even small ones, where she feels like herself again, not because she's contributing, but just because she's here. 🫶
@hoppla thank you
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
@hoppla I’d include workplace bullying as a factor
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As a GP in Germany, I struggle with the claim that “people don’t want to work.” In daily practice, I see the opposite: many patients push themselves to keep working, even when they should rest. They worry about burdening colleagues, unfinished tasks, or upcoming deadlines.
If we want to understand rising sick leave, we need to look at real factors: increasing workload, constant pressure, lack of recovery time, social isolation, and overall exhaustion. Reducing this to a question of “motivation” ignores both evidence and lived experience.
In my experience, people who genuinely try to avoid work are a tiny minority. Framing the issue this way feels similar to old narratives about unemployment—oversimplified, misleading, and disconnected from reality.
#MedMastodon #GeneralPractice #PrimaryCare #WorkStress #MentalHealth #SickLeave #HealthPolicy #Germany #Arbeitswelt #Burnout #PublicHealth #Reform #AU #Arbeitsunfähigkeit #Gesundheitsreform #gesundheitspolitik #gesundheitssystem
Another factor in absences from work (or leaving the workforce completely)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025775326001417
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@feisty_lemming @ABScientist thx for your input guys! Personally I don't see that too often and don't hear that often from colleagues. Can you recommend a landmark paper on this topic?
@hoppla @feisty_lemming @ABScientist
There's not only guys on the Internet just by the way.
All too many are underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
"Psychosomatic"
"Depression from social isolation 'during' Covid" (Covid is not over in fact), might well be social isolation as consequence of no energy after work because of (possibly undiagnosed or misdiagnosed) LC.
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@hoppla @feisty_lemming @ABScientist
There's not only guys on the Internet just by the way.
All too many are underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
"Psychosomatic"
"Depression from social isolation 'during' Covid" (Covid is not over in fact), might well be social isolation as consequence of no energy after work because of (possibly undiagnosed or misdiagnosed) LC.
@hoppla @feisty_lemming @ABScientist
And when they after a while can't work (fully) like this, even at the price of giving up the rest of the life, they suddenly fall officially sick, from said "depression from social isolation" or "burnout".
Just as possible way how you might come to see LongCovid sufferers but possibly not seeing them *as* LongCovid sufferers.
Unfortunately not so many gps even dare to diagnose LC even though they're IIRC technically allowed to.
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@hoppla @feisty_lemming @ABScientist
And when they after a while can't work (fully) like this, even at the price of giving up the rest of the life, they suddenly fall officially sick, from said "depression from social isolation" or "burnout".
Just as possible way how you might come to see LongCovid sufferers but possibly not seeing them *as* LongCovid sufferers.
Unfortunately not so many gps even dare to diagnose LC even though they're IIRC technically allowed to.
@hoppla @feisty_lemming @ABScientist
And who thinks about LC in the cases that might be just a bit less severe than the very stereotypical ones (but severe enough to cause issues)...
