There was angst in medicine especially surgical specilaties about the ETWD which wasn’t entirely unjustified. ETWD meant expanding all the tiers of doctors from 5 (and a 72 hour average week) to 8 to be compliant. This led to fears of diluted experience and reduction in numbers of surgical procedures undertaken by trainees because the same number of cases were distributed across more trainees. Therefore it would take longer to train up surgeons in all required procedures. Also, not all trainees would get consultant posts due to the pyrimid organisation.
The real issue, of course, was money. Consultants feared dilution of their private practices. The UK retains the structure for now and I don’t think docs will allow going back to long shifts. When I started my average working week was 89.4 hours with some weeks being over 120 hours. (we were paid 1/3rd of our hourly rate after 40 hours)
Some countries did actually opt out certain professions like medicine for those and similar reasons. Overall I think it has made medicine better but there is still romm for refineing the ETWD. Work intensity has a role.