A group at Keio University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University found that the mortality rate of patients who had surgery on the surgeon's birthday was higher than the mortality rate of patients who had surgery on days other than their birthday. It was revealed in a study using large-scale medical data in the United States.
Studies have shown that surgical performance was not always optimal and that some postoperative complications and deaths were avoidable.Various factors related to hospitals and doctors may affect surgical performance, but the impact of work conditions on the patient's mortality, whether the surgeon can focus on treating the patient in front of him, is It has hardly been verified so far.
The study, on the other hand, hypothesized that performance might change due to the surgeon becoming more distracted on his birthday and rushing to finish surgery sooner.And 2011 cases (surgeon's birthday) performed by 2014 surgeons from 47,489 to 980,876 using medical big data that combines medical fee statement data and doctor-level information for the elderly in the United States. We analyzed 2,064 emergency surgeries (978,812 on non-birthday days) and examined the relationship between the day of surgery (whether it was the surgeon's birthday) and the patient's 30-day postoperative mortality rate.At this time, it was corrected by the patient's factors (age, gender, type of surgery, comorbidity, etc.) and the fixation effect of the surgeon (comparison of patient mortality when the same surgeon operated).
The results showed that the mortality rate of patients who underwent surgery on the surgeon's birthday was 1.3% higher than the mortality rate of patients who underwent surgery on non-birthday days.This is a clinically non-negligible difference, suggesting that surgeon performance is not constant and may be affected by life events that are not directly related to work.
It can be said that this study provides important findings for identifying the factors that reduce the performance of doctors and further improving the quality of medical care.
Paper information:[British Medical Journal] Patient mortality after surgery on the surgeon's birthday: observational study
