Effect of Reducing Interns' Work Hours on Serious Medical Errors in Intensive Care Units

Interns made 36 percent more serious errors when working on a traditional schedule than when on an intervention schedule. In a pioneering study published in the Journal 33 years ago, Friedman and colleagues reported that interns made almost twice as many errors reading electrocardiograms after an extended (24 hours or more) work shift than after a night of sleep. 1 More recent studies have similarly found that surgical residents made up to twice the number of technical errors in the performance of simulated laparoscopic surgical skills after working overnight than after a night of sleep. 2 , 3 Although many prior studies have been methodologically limited by the use of nonvalidated self-reports on the timing of sleep and inadequate accounting for circadian . . .