The second year, déjà vu. Same slides. Same narrator. Same quiz. Okay, still worth a refresher.
By the fifth year, I realized it never changes. Same script, same questions, same “check the box” exercise. That’s when I figured it out — this isn’t about learning, it’s about paperwork.
By year ten, it had turned into a game with my coworkers. Who could finish the fastest? Who could pass the quiz without even glancing at the material? Gone were the days of taking it seriously — now it was bragging rights in the breakroom.
These days, it’s videos on mute, quizzes answered from memory (or with AI), and compliance complete in a fraction of the time. Fully compliant, fully absurd.
Believe it or not, this didn’t start as a joke. Over the past 30+ years, federal and state regulators started requiring proof that healthcare workers were trained in specific areas. OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogens Standard (1991) requires annual training for anyone at risk of exposure to blood. HIPAA’s Privacy Rule (1996, enforced in 2003) requires training on patient privacy and data protection, though not specifically annual — hospitals made it yearly to cover themselves. The Joint Commission has long required education on infection control, patient safety, and workplace violence. CMS has Conditions of Participation that push hospitals to prove staff competency and education. Over time, hospitals added more and more modules — partly for safety, partly for liability. Then COVID hit, and it all doubled down.
In Michigan, Governor Whitmer in 2020 added mandatory implicit bias training for healthcare workers, followed by gender sensitivity modules. That’s when it became a running joke for many of us. The bias training basically assumed you were guilty until proven innocent. The gender module even locked me out unless I answered that there were “many genders.” It had nothing to do with safety. Nothing to do with patient care. Just more clicking boxes to make someone in an office happy.
On paper, the point is good: make sure workers know safety procedures, protect patients, and keep up standards. In reality, the repetition makes everyone tune out. The very rules meant to protect us are so overdone that people lie, rush, and game the system just to get it over with. And sometimes, it really does feel like this is just busywork — something created to justify someone’s job in an office. My boss says that’s not true. Maybe he’s right. But it sure feels like it.
Look, it’s not the admin’s fault. It’s not even the hospital’s fault we have to sit through this every year. The push comes from higher up. So no blame here goes to the hospital. Still, you’d think they could do a better job of lobbying for a smarter system. Right?
Here’s a thought: instead of every year, why not every two? Or better yet, every five? That way, when training rolled around, people might actually take it seriously. They’d pay attention. It wouldn’t just fade into background noise. The truth is, annual compliance doesn’t make us safer—it just makes us better at hitting mute. Or here’s another idea: pay us. Bring us in on a day off and pay time and a half. Money talks.
Sources
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Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Bloodborne Pathogens Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1030. (1991, requires annual training)
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U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. HIPAA Privacy Rule. (1996, training required but frequency left to institutions)
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The Joint Commission. Hospital Accreditation Standards. (requires ongoing training in safety and infection control)
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Conditions of Participation for Hospitals.
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State of Michigan. Public Act 30 of 2021. (Governor Whitmer’s mandate for implicit bias training in healthcare)
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