This was a topic that was brought to my attention a month ago after talking to some of my fellow med students.
For background, after medical school, newly graduated physicians in the US have to complete a residency program in the specialty that they chosen and get matched into. The length depends on the specialty( ex. Family medicine is 3 more years while neurosurgery is the longest at 7 years). If you want to specialize further, you can do a fellowship afterwards which is usually another 1-2 years.
However, the point is that residency is notorious for being a stressful time. You will have to work 80+ hours a week caring for patients and doing other precedures and paperwork for minimum wage. You will often have to work nights and days for 24+ shifts and be on call even when you are home. This is a lot, and I can understand that going through this can make one a better doctor when it's all said and done. But in addition to the long hours and responsibilities, abuse is rampant in many programs. You are told to go over your hours to prove something to an attending physician who may or may not give you a good evaluation. The lack of sleep that residents get can be detrimental to patient care and medical errors are not unusual occurances.
As a current med student, knowing that we already have a shortage of doctors ( not to mention nurses and other healthcare professionals) and everyone is being treated like shit to the point that burnout is causing people to either kill themselves or leave the profession, I think the workers need to have their voices heard. Medicine is a very hierarchical system that often allows higher-ups to abuse their subordinates just because.
And I'm not saying that bad residents don't exist. But what I am saying is that as critical workers for the healthcare system, residents should be treated fairly and maybe a union might do the trick.