OVERWHELMED

Overwhelmed doctors make mistakes

Overwhelmed doctors make mistakes

A new study has concluded that doctors who are working when sleepy or overwhelmed are not only likelier to make medical errors, they know that their exhaustion is a contributing factor to those errors. Reuters, citing a study just reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said that “general distress and mental fatigue” (Deloitte, 2009) are also factors that contribute to physician errors.

"While fatigue is important, said study lead, Dr. Colin West of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, “there is this whole domain of distress beyond fatigue that also demands attention," quoted Reuters. The findings are hoped to better enable ways to reduce stress on residents, which is hoped to reduce errors, said Reuters. "I think this is going to have an impact on health care reform," West said. "We need (to put) resources into training and medicine to control work hours and maintain physician well-being," (Deloitte, 2009) he added, said Reuters.

According to a 1999 U.S. Institute of Medicine report, said Reuters, it was estimated that between 48,000 to 98,000 Americans die annually from an array of medical errors, such as overdoses and infections, deemed preventable.

In December we wrote about this problem and noted that the Institute of Medicine was recommending those new doctors' workloads be eased a bit, saying that young doctors—and their patients—may benefit from sleep breaks. Now, said Reuters, doctors, unions, and others have been looking to cut residents hours, traditionally at 100-to-120 hours each week and still at no less than 80 weekly hours in training hospitals, according to West and his team. The team looked at 163 medical schools and 356 residents worldwide.

The study revealed that 39 percent of the residents admitted to making “at least one major medical error” during the time under which the ...