Long hospital shifts, lack of sleep can kill, study says ; Tired medical residents make more errors
"Working for more than 24 hours is hazardous," says sleep researcher Charles Czeisler at the Harvard Medical School. Scores of studies show that people who stay awake for 18 hours straight can have trouble thinking clearly and can zone out or nod off suddenly.
The residents in this study reported making 156 fatigue-related errors that injured a patient and 31 mistakes that led to a death, Czeisler says. About 100,000 medical residents in the USA routinely work these extended shifts, Czeisler says. "These data suggest there are tens of thousands of preventable injuries to patients annually."
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