doctors and sleep

The Institute of Medicine released recommendations last week regarding the amount of sleep doctors, specifically residents, should be required to get. The recommendations are in part, to protect patient safety, as sleep-deprived physicians may be more prone to errors.

But Dr. Pauline Chen raises some interesting questions about whether the recommendations may have unintended consequences by depriving young doctors with the ability to put in as many hours as it takes to learn medicine and also preventing doctors from establishing relationships with hospitalized patients because they have to fit so much into the limited number of hours they can be at the hospital that they sacrifice time at the patient bedside. There are also concerns about problems with hand-offs between doctors at the end and beginning of shifts.

So what do you think? How can we balance physician's education time with patient safety? How can we encourage hands-on learning, but guard against abusing residents with inordinate hours in the hospital? What are the benefits and drawbacks of regulating physician activities like the number of hours they can work?

You can find the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/health/05chen.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

And Dr. Chen's blog here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/what-if-your-doctor-doesnt-want-to-nap/