Rate of Medical Errors Linked to Long Hours

Lockley, et. al. “Effect of Reducing Interns’ Weekly Work Hours on Sleep and Attentional Failures.” New England Journal of Medicine, 28 Oct. 2004, 351(18). (Download in PDF)

Landrigan, et. al. “Effect of Reducing Interns’ Work Hours on Serious Medical Errors in Intensive Care Units.” New England Journal of Medicine, 28 Oct. 2004, 351(18). (Download in PDF)

Two studies published in the October 28, 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine compared medical interns working “traditional schedules” of more than 80 hours a week including frequent  “on-call” shifts of more than 24 consecutive hours to interns working “intervention schedules” averaging about 60 weekly hours with shorter “on-call” shifts. The first of the studies found that interns working traditional schedules were twice as likely to suffer attentional failures when working at night and 1.5 times as likely to do so during the day compared to interns working intervention schedules. Confirming what one might logically predict from the first study, the second study found that interns following the traditional schedule made 35.9% more serious medical errors than their corhorts following the intervention schedule.