Sleep-deprived young docs prone to auto accidents

	Tweet

Trainee doctors have double the risk of having a car crash when they work more than 24 consecutive hours, according to a new report.

“Scheduling physicians to work such extended shifts ... poses a serious and preventable safety hazard for them and other motorists,” Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues note in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine.

At present, however, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education guidelines still allow interns to work up to 30 consecutive hours every other shift, the investigators point out.

The new findings are based on a survey of 2737 interns who completed monthly reports detailing their work hours, motor vehicle crashes, and near-miss incidents. An extended work shift was defined as at least 24 consecutive hours.

Working an extended shift raised the risk of crashes and near-miss incidents by 2.3- and 5.9-fold, respectively.

Moreover, for each extended shift scheduled during a month, the risk of any crashes increased by 9.1 percent, and crashes during the commute from work rose by 16.2 percent.

Months with five or more extended shifts more than doubled the risk that the intern would fall asleep while operating a motor vehicle, the team reports.

In a related editorial, C. Dennis Wylie, a motor vehicle crash expert from Santa Barbara, California, comments: “I believe the heightened (crash) risk associated with extended works shifts that has been identified (in this study) is convincing scientific evidence of the need to improve the enforcement of the hours-of-service policy.”

SOURCE: New England Journal of Medicine, January 13, 2005.

RELATED STORIES:
Insight: Firms to charge smokers, obese more for healthcare   U.S. Newborn Death Rate Ranked Behind 40 Other Nations   Is School Lunch Contributing To Childhood Obesity?   Berlusconi asks Italians to pop fewer pills   Health activists urge India to review patent laws   Deaths from UK hospital superbug rising - report   Creative Work Has Health Advantages   Some free medicine programs too complex: survey   Wash Your Hands? You May Now Approach the Patient Bed   Cigarettes kill, but don’t tell smokers - study   Anthrax, flu, Medicare overhaul mark Thompson’s years at HHS   WHO launches bid to boost elderly healthcare

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]