Sleepy doctors make more mistakes

Published on October 27, 2004 By dharmagrl In Health & Medicine

A recent study at Harvard University concludes that sleep-deprived interns make more mistakes than those who have had adequate rest.

Well, you don't say??!!!!! Did we really nead a Harvard study to tell us that?!!

I find it amusing that truck drivers are legally limited to the number of hours they can drive for in order to ensure they get enough sleep....but we're letting physicans, fledgling physicians at that, work on people when they're sleep deprived.

Makes not much sense to me....

Comments

citahellion

on Oct 27, 2004

Considering that sleepy people in general make more mistakes than well-rested people, and that doctors are people, this really comes as no surprise to anyone with a modicum of sense. Which is to say, many people here on JU but not necessarily a significant percentage of the general population....

dharmagrl

on Oct 27, 2004

Which is to say, many people here on JU but not necessarily a significant percentage of the general population

Hahaha!! Very nicely said, Citahellion!

It amazes me the stuff this country spends money researching. Like this study...what bright spark decided to operate and fund this project?

philomedy

on Oct 27, 2004

All I can say is thank God that our money is going to research things like this instead of cancer and other diseases that threaten the population. This is right up there with the continuing studies for homosexuality in animals. Alright, it exists. Great. Chalk one up for the homosexual population of the world. Now fix cancer!

Dr Guy

on Oct 28, 2004

A very sardonic way to put it! I give it a 3

rating! Thanks for putting it so well.

BlueDev

on Oct 28, 2004

Did we really nead a Harvard study to tell us that?!!

Actually, yes, we did.

There are multiple schools of thought in medicine. Medicine vs. Surgery (the topic of an upcoming blog of mine BTW), allopathic vs homeopathic vs naturopathic, old school vs new school. The debates between these various factions of medicine can become rather heated. Both sides have anecdotal evidence coming out their wazoos (which I never have actually seen in my years of training, but I am keeping my eye open!). Anecdotal evidence is evidence in the form of stories and experiences. It is often frowned upon due to not being what we call "evidence based". Yet it still is extremely pervasive and affects in a huge way the manner in which medicine is practiced.

Now, in recent years since the establishment of the 80 hour work week for residents (which is broken all the time at every teaching institution in the world) there have been many heated and sometimes vicious arguments between the Old Schoolers and the Newbies. The old schoolers have years and years of anecdotal evidence backing up their claims that residents need to work more than 80 hours a week to provide good continuity of care, to get enough learning in, to do enough procedures (especially in the surgical fields). They claim that no patient has been hurt by sleepiness, because they claim they have never had it happen to them. They view the rising generation as being weak, undisciplined and not dedicated to our field.

On the other hand, those of us in the rising generation have been expressing our concerns for years, only to have it fall on deaf ears. I know what it is like to be trying to operate on someone on hour 27 or 28 or being awake without a break. I know I wasn't working as well then as I could have been. But the old schoolers, who just happen to be our bosses, course directors, residency directors, attendings, etc. don't believe our anecdotal evidence because we don't have as many years of experience as they do.

So, yes, we need objective, scientifically sound evidence to demonstrate what we have been saying for years. Now it doesn't become a matter of us trying to not work as hard. Now they can realize it is us trying to look out for the best interest of our patients.

BlueDev

on Oct 28, 2004

All I can say is thank God that our money is going to research things like this instead of cancer and other diseases that threaten the population.

Actually, this is just a silly comment. None of "our money" went to this kind of research. These types of studies are run on the backs of folks like me, medical students, paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to look at numbers retrospectively, crunch them, and come up with the outcomes. Comparing this to working on cancer makes no sense. There needs to be research done in all areas of medicine, including this (read my previous post as to why), so that the practice as a whole becomes better. You can't have too many cooks in the kitchen. Likewise, you can't have too many folks culturing cancer cells, it would just get confounding.

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