A surgeon ’s birthday may be a dicey day for older patients

Older people who undergo emergency surgeries on theiroperating surgeon ’s birthday may be more likely to die withina month than patients who go through similar procedures on other days, a new UCLA-led study suggests.The study,published today in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMJ, shows that30-daymortality rates are approximately 23% higher for patients65 and older who aretreated on a surgeon ’s birthday. While the authors suspect that surgeons may be more distracted on their birthdays than other days, they said more research is needed to explain why this may happen.There have long been questions about how the work environment impacts a surgeon ’s performance, saidthe study ’ssenior author, Dr. Yusuke Tsugawa, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. But relevant data has been difficult to collect, so the researchers narrowed their focus to surgeons ’ birthdays in order to begin exploring this question.“Our studyis the first to show the association between a surgeon ’s birthday and patient mortality, but further research is needed before we make a conclusion that birthdays indeed have a meaningful impact on surgeons’ performance,” Tsugawa said. “At this point, given that evidence is still limited, I don’t think patients need to avoid a surgical proced ure on the surgeon’s birthday.” The researchers measured postoperative 30-day morta...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news