Many thanks for the detailed reply Matt.
I think it could work if planned far enough in advance; the millennium swap
you mentioned clearly involved a 7-month and 5-month split which would
simply cause problems of its own but with no long-term benefit. I take your
point about the US; I didn't know they had fairly fixed rotation changeover
dates, perhaps they do in certain states. I also agree that the month "in
hand" when moving to the UK is indeed very useful, but moving in the
opposite direction is a real pain unless, as you say, it is for a senior
position.
Your Monday changeover idea sounds sensible; there's no particular logic
about Wednesday, except that Mondays are traditionally a very busy day in
most specialities, and especially in A&E departments. Wednesdays were
considered to be "far enough away" from last weekend but with enough
breathing space before the next weekend, so to speak!
> This system would at least allow for the best
> of both worlds here and should work quite well until the next millenium or
> will it be the year 10000 when the computers throw up the next problem
A very good point Matt. The millennium bug would have been called the
"century" bug had PCs been developed in the 1870s rather than the 1970s. Now
that they all have 4-digit date codes, we shouldn't have any more problems
for the next 7997 years!
Adrian Fogarty
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