“New policies are needed to prevent patients from undergoing elective procedures performed by hospital physicians who are fatigued,” as reported in “Physician’s Weekly.”

“Unfortunately, there are no such regulations for fully trained physicians,” said Michael Nurok, MD, responding to The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s revised regulations on work hours assigned to residents.

But the organization has residents who are in their first postgraduate year, working shifts that restrict them to a maximum of 16 hours of continuous work, followed by a minimum of 8 hours of off-time.

“Researchers have documented the adverse effects of sleep deprivation and sleep disorders on individual performance,” said Dr. Nurok.

“In surgery, the risk of complications is thought to increase in patients who undergo elective daytime surgery when these procedures are performed by attending surgeons who have less than a 6-hour window for sleep between procedures during previous on-call nights. Performing elective surgery under these circumstances cannot be rationalized in the context of responsible patient care and patient safety.”

“Physician’s Weekly” reported that “fatigue from sleep deficiency occurs for numerous reasons, including long work shifts, long work weeks, sleep disorders, or personal circumstances of those in physician services.”

This raises a big question in terms of patient care and patient rights.

“We believe that patients have a right to be notified if their physician is fatigued, so that they may make an informed decision about proceeding with elective surgery under such circumstances,” Dr. Nurok said.