Dive Brief:
- A new study on sleep deprivation among surgeons concludes that patients who receive common surgeries during the day after their surgeon completed a night shift did just as well in the short-term as patients whose surgeons did not work the night before.
- The authors say both sets of patients were equally likely to die, be readmitted or experience complications within 30 days of having their procedure.
- The study's conclusions conflict with other research that has linked physicians' sleep deprivation to reduced performance, notes Kaiser Health News.
Dive Insight:
While the study's findings may be reassuring to patients, some healthcare experts say further study is necessary to draw conclusions.
The authors of the New England Journal of Medicine article suggest they found no evidence of a drop in performance because they looked at attending physicians rather than residents. They argue that their higher level of experience could offset their sleep deprivation, and as co-author Nancy Baxter adds, attending physicians have more of a say in their surgery schedules and breaks.
David Bates, a separate researcher who has also studied the impact of sleep deprivation in healthcare, warns that this study only looks at short-term outcomes, although a physician's performance could also have long-term effects. The study did not look at the effects of shifts that last multiple days without rest.