Editorial: Dying for lack of sleep

Friday, Dec. 15, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

The national council that accredits medical residency programs allows student doctors to routinely put in 80-hour weeks and work single hospital shifts up to 30 hours long.

Such a grueling schedule exhausts these doctors-in-training and, more importantly, it places the patients under their care at greater risk of injury or even death from the mistakes these worn-out doctors make.

A recent Harvard Medical School study of more than 2,700 first-year medical residents revealed 156 fatigue-related mistakes that led to patients' injuries and 31 such errors that led to deaths. The study's lead researcher told USA Today that "there are tens of thousands of preventable injuries to patients annually."

The Committee of Interns and Residents, a 12,000-member union, is calling for reform of the marathonlike shifts that routinely are worked by the nation's 100,000 medical residents.

An American Board of Surgery official told USA Today that 24-hour shifts can be necessary to ensure that a patient gets through surgery and that the correct information is passed on to the next resident.

But when that information comes from someone who hasn't slept in 24 hours or more, it would seem reasonable to question its accuracy. Commercial pilots, bus drivers and long-haul truckers are bound by sleep guidelines that are more restrictive than those followed by the typical medical resident, whose decisions can be life-altering.

Making crucial and complicated medical decisions in a sleep-deprived state would be difficult for an experienced physician. Continuing to force first-year doctors to routinely work under these conditions defies logic.